Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout

 

(pb; 1938: fifth book in the forty-six book Nero Wolfe detective series. Originally serialized in six issues of The American Magazine, March—August 1938)

 

From the back cover

“As the great detective prepares to speak at a gathering of the world’s great chefs, one is found indelicately murdered. When the target for killing shifts to himself, Wolfe must close this case quickly or his next meal may be his last.”

 

Review

In Cooks, the distinguished detective and his worldly, ready-for-action associate and bodyguard Archie Goodwin deal with another murder, this time Philip Laszio’s. Laszio was a chef who’d magpied other chefs’ popular and distinctive dishes to further himself in the chef hustle—not only that, he stole a rival’s wife, a rival who’s also at the great-chef gathering, and a gathering that includes a few of Laszio’s high-profile victims.

Foodies may revel in the copious, detailed chatter about fancy dishes, while murder mystery buffs may enjoy Wolfe and Goodwin’s often dialogue-funny solving of the case. Part of the mystery, for many weathered readers, should prove easily figured out, but the second part of it—a possible second who— might keep some readers on edge.

Cooks, like other Nero Wolfe entries up till now, is an often-entertaining read (the foodie talk was lengthy), one worth seeking out. Followed by Some Buried Caesar (1939).