Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout

 

(pb; 1934: first book in the forty-six-book Nero Wolfe detective series)

From the back cover

“Fer-de-lance. As any herpetologist will tell you, the fer-de-lance is among the most dreaded snakes known to man. When someone makes a present of one to Nero Wolfe. Archie Goodwin knows he’s getting dreadfully close to solving the devilishly clever murders of an immigrant and a college president. As for Wolfe, he’s playing snake charmer in a case with more twists than an anaconda—whistling a seductive tune he hopes will catch a killer who’s still got poison in his heart.”

 

Review

Fer-de-Lance is often charming (if sometimes misogynistic), funny and sometimes maddening (the corpulent, comfort-ruled Wolfe works at his own pace, and won’t be rushed, even when situations dictate haste)—it’s also consistently interesting, bordering on suspenseful (especially when the plot comes down to the wire), with eccentric Nero Wolfe and often-sarcastic, lady’s-man narrator Archie Goodwin’s relationship at the heart of the action. This is a good, hard-to-set-down read, and a promising introduction—with a dark, mercenary, character-true finish—to Stout’s Nero-based seventy-four works (encompassing thirty-three novels and forty-one novellas and short stories). Followed by The League of Frightened Men.