Some Buried Caesar/The Golden Spiders (Nero Wolfe Mysteries) (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: spider earrings, golden spiders, red leather chair, Nero Wolfe, Jean Estey, New York (more...)

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Product Description

“Nero Wolfe towers over his rivals...he is an exceptional character creation.” —New Yorker

A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America’s greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of fiction’s greatest detectives. Here, in this special double edition, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth and his trusty man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, solve two of their most bizarre cases.

Some Buried Caesar
A prize bull destined for the barbecue is found pawing the corpse of a late restaurateur. Wolfe is certain that Hickory Caesar Grindon, the soon-to-be-beefsteak bull, isn’t the murderer. But who among a veritable stampede of suspects—including a young woman who’s caught Archie’s eye—turned the tables on Hickory’s would-be butcher? It’s a crime that wins a blue ribbon for sheer audacity—and Nero Wolfe is the one detective audacious enough to solve it.

The Golden Spiders
A twelve-year-old boy shows up at Wolfe’s brownstone with an incredible story. Soon the great detective finds himself hired for the grand sum of $4.30 and faced with the question of why the last two people to hire him were murdered. To keep it from becoming three, Wolfe must discover the unlikely connection between a gray Cadillac, a mysterious woman, and a pair of earrings shaped like spiders dipped in gold.

About the Author

Rex Stout, born 1886 in Indiana/USA, worked at thirty different professions until he earned enough money to travel. In 1932, he began to write thrillers focusing on the famous detective Nero Wolfe. Nero is a gourmet weighing more than a hundred kilos, and moving as little as possible. Rex Stout finished more than fifty novels and received the "Grand Masters Award". He died 1975.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (September 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553385674
• ISBN-13: 978-0553385670
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #90,772 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two of the best, October 10, 2009

By	Jeanne Tassotto (Trapped in the Midwest) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a re-issue of two of the best entries in this long running series of mysteries featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The first, SOME BURIED CAESAR was originally written in 1938, and while some of the scientific aspects show their age has held up quite well overall. Wolfe has been lured out of his beloved brownstone to enter an orchid competition in upstate New York. On the way he has become entangled in a feud between a nouveau riche restauranteur and his neighbors over the disposition of a prize bull. When a death occurs Wolfe and Archie find themselves sorting through the web of deception to find the truth. Long time fans will be especially delighted to see the first meeting of Archie and his long time love interest, Lily Rowan.

The second, THE GOLDEN SPIDERS, was first published in 1953 and has also held up well. Although the young man's speech might seem dated his tough street wise attitude is not, and if the reader would substitute the phrase 'illegal alien' for 'displaced person' the story might have been written yesterday. A young boy has come to the brownstone to consult with Wolfe just as Archie and Wolfe were engaging in yet another battle of wits. To spite Wolfe Archie let the boy in and to spite Archie Wolfe listened to his story of a mysterious woman wearing gold earrings shaped like spiders who had made a desperate plea for help to the boy. To humor the boy Wolfe had Archie make inquiries into the matter but gave the incident little thought after the boy left. When they discovered though that the boy had been run over and killed by the same car he had described the next day they took the matter much more seriously. Before Wolfe solved this puzzle though he needed not only Archie's skill but those of Saul, Fred and Orrie as well, making this a real treat of fans of the series.

In addition to the two excellent stories there are also interesting introductions to each, a biography of Stout and some other worthwhile extras. This is a great place for a newcomer to begin the series or for a fan to renew their acquaintance.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Stout, Early & Late: Bully!, June 28, 2009

By	David C. Young "David C. Young, LCSW" (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This latest double-novel re-issue of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories is most welcome! "Some Buried Caesar" was first published 70 years ago, and it's one of Stout's best early Wolfe novels, here combined with a good later-style novel, "Golden Spiders".

"Some Buried Caesar" is an "away from the brownstone" story. Wolfe travels to rural upstate New York to exhibit his albino orchids at a county fair. Odd for an agoraphobic, or at least travel-phobic man? Yes, but Wolfe was confronting someone Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's dogsbody, calls "an enemy". In Archie's words:

"The above-mentioned enemy that Wolfe was being gracious to was a short fat person in a dirty unpressed mohair suit, with keen little black eyes and two chins, by the name of Charles E. Shanks. I watched them and listened to them as I sipped the milk, because it was instructive. Shanks knew that the reason Wolfe had busted precedent and come to Crowfield to exhibit albinos which he had got by three new crosses with Paphiopedilum lawrenceanum hyeanum was to get an award over one Shanks had produced by crossing P. callosum sanderae with a new species from Burma, that Wolfe desired and intended to make a monkey of Shanks because Shanks had fought shy of the metropolitan show and had also twice refused Wolfe's offers to trade albinos, and that one good look at the entries in direct comparison made it practically certain that the judges' decision would render Shanks not only a monkey but even a baboon. Furthermore, Wolfe knew that Shanks knew that they both knew, but hearing them gabbing away you might have thought that when a floriculturist wipes his brow it is to remove not sweat but his excess of brotherly love, which is why, knowing the stage of vindictiveness Wolfe had had to arrive at before he decided on that trip, I say it was instructive to listen to them."

As always, Archie tells the story, in his own cheeky & genuine way, with many sharp observations. It's not Stout's terse late-style, but it's still very much Archie and lots of fun!

In "Some Buried Caesar", Archie's long-term "lady friend", Lily Rowan, makes her first appearance. This isn't the Lily of later Wolfe novels, but there are several Lily-Archie sparks & dialogues, right from the beginning where she calls him, "Escamillo" -- the manly bullfighter who stole Carmen away from her solider lover in Bizet's opera, "Carmen". That has ironic bite in context, a context I won't share. I'm not giving any plot hints, because surprises start in the first chapter, and why spoil them?

But to tease you into the book, let me add some dialogues from Archie/Lilly. This begins with Archie:

"Oh, possibly Clyde's father sicked them on. I know when I mentioned your name to him last night and said you were there, he nearly popped open. I got the impression he had seen you once in a nightmare. Not that I think you belong in a nightmare, with your complexion and so on, but that was the impression I got."
"He's just a pain." She shrugged indifferently. "He has no right to be talking about me. Anyway, not to you." Her eyes moved up me and over me, up from my chest over my face to the top of my head, and then slowly traveled down again. "Not to you, Escamillo," she said. I wanted to slap her, because her tone, and the look in her eyes going over me, made me feel like a potato she was peeling. She asked, "What did he say?"

And a little later, again starting with Archie:
"Did you and Clyde get engaged?"
"No." She looked at me, and the corner of her mouth turned up, and I saw her breasts gently putting the weave of the jersey to more strain as she breathed a deep one. "No, Escamillo." She peeled her potato again. "I don't suppose I'll marry. Because marriage is really nothing but an economic arrangement, and I'm lucky because I don't have to let the economic part enter into it."

There are wonderful bits of description, plot twists & dialogues on almost every page. Highlights include the surprises in the first few chapters, Archie's time in jail, and the denouement at the end. If you want a plot summary, go to Wikipedia, which has plot summaries of all Wolfe novels.

"Golden Spiders", first published in 1953, has one of Wolfe's best chuckle-producing introductions, which I give because it won't spoil any surprises. As always, in Archie's storytelling voice:

"When the doorbell rings while Nero Wolfe and I are at dinner, in the old brownstone house on West Thirty-fifth Street, ordinarily it is left to Fritz to answer it. But that evening I went myself, knowing that Fritz was in no mood to handle a caller, no matter who it was.

"Fritz's mood should be explained. Each year around the middle of May, by arrangement, a farmer who lives up near Brewster shoots eighteen or twenty starlings, puts them in a bag, and gets in his car and drives to New York. It is understood that they are to be delivered to our door within two hours after they were winged. Fritz dresses them and sprinkles them with salt, and, at the proper moment, brushes them with melted butter, wraps them in sage leaves, grills them, and arranges them on a platter of hot polenta, which is thick porridge of fine-ground yellow cornmeal with butter, grated cheese, and salt and pepper.

"It is an expensive meal and a happy one, and Wolfe always looks forward to it, but that day he put on an exhibition. When the platter was brought in, steaming, and placed before him, he sniffed, ducked his head and sniffed again, and straightened to look up at Fritz.
"The sage?"
"No, sir."
"What do you mean, no, sir?"
"I thought you might like it once in a style I have suggested, with saffron and tarragon. Much fresh tarragon, with just a touch of saffron, which is the way--"
"Remove it!"
Fritz went rigid and his lips tightened.
"You did not consult me,' Wolfe said coldly. "To find that without warning one of my favorite dishes has been radically altered is an unpleasant shock. It may possibly be edible, but I am in no humor to risk it. Please dispose of it and bring me four coddled eggs and a piece of toast."

"Fritz, knowing Wolfe as well as I did, aware that this was a stroke of discipline that hurt Wolfe more than it did him and that it would be useless to try to parley, reached for the platter, but I put in, "I'll take some if you don't mind. If the smell won't keep you from enjoying your eggs?"

"Wolfe glared at me.

"That was how Fritz acquired the mood that made me think it advisable for me to answer the door. When the bell rang Wolfe had finished his eggs and was drinking coffee, really a pitiful sight, and I was toward the end of a second helping of the starlings and polenta, which was certainly edible. Going to the hall and the front, I didn't bother to snap the light switch because there was still enough twilight for me to see, through the one-way glass panel, that the customer on the stoop was not our ship coming in.

"I pulled the door open and told him politely, "Wrong number." I was polite by policy, my established policy of promoting the idea of peace on earth with the neighborhood kids. It made life smoother in that street, where there was a fair amount of ball throwing and other activities.
"Guess again," he told me in a low nervous alto, not too rude. "You're Archie Goodwin. I've gotta see Nero Wolfe."
"What's your name?"
"Pete."
"What's the rest of it?"
"Drossos. Pete Drossos."
"What do you want to see Mr. Wolfe about?"
"I gotta case. I'll tell him."

"He as a wiry little specimen with black hair that needed a trim and sharp black eyes, the top of his head coming about level with the knot of my four-in-hand. I had seen him around the neighborhood but had nothing either for or against him. The thing was to ease him off without starting a feud, and ordinarily I would have gone at it, but after Wolfe's childish performance with Fritz I thought it would do him good to have another child to play with."

Other plot highlights include a touching scene around a death, some funny New York hoodlum scenes - Stout draws these characters well -- and perhaps the best Archie action scene in Wolfedom, exciting & with some grins, including self-grins. Again, if you want a plot summary - and I wouldn't recommend it; why spoil the surprises? - go to Wikipedia.

I've given extended Wolfe quotes mainly for the newcomers. Some folks don't like Stout's writing. But for those of us who do, he delights not only in reading, but also in re-reading, even knowing what's next. If these quotes entice or even just intrigue, buy this double-set and give it a read. You may become a Wolfe fan, or as we say, a member of the Wolfe Pack!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars job well done, April 19, 2009

By	M. Levitt "bookaholic" (Philly,PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Haven't read the book yet - however it arrived instantly (almost) & is in perfect condition. Many thanks