Rex Stout

This chapter details the strengths of Rex Stout as an author of detective fiction, particularly in his mysteries starring Nero Wolfe. Here, the chapter argues that Stout's singular achievement was to refresh and refashion the partnership of mastermind sleuth and good-hearted narrator. He adapted the model of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson from late Victorian England to metropolitan Manhattan, circa 1935–1965. The cogitation is done by the obese, beer-drinking, orchid-loving detective with the imperial name who does not budge from his West Thirty-fifth Street brownstone; his right-hand man-about-town Archie Goodwin does the work on the ground and tells the tale. The chapter asserts that one reads a Nero Wolfe mystery not for the plot or puzzle but for the richness of the two leading characters and the evocation of New York City as the capital of glamour.