Customer Reviews

Fer-de-Lance/The League of Frightened Men

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I've grown up knowing about Nero Wolfe. I remember the TV show when I was a kid, and there's also a more current TV series that looks pretty good, though I have to admit I don't remember watching any of the episodes of either series. I worked in a library for several years, shelving books for a living, and it seems like there were an awful lot of Rex Stout books to put away. But I hadn't read any of them at that time either.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I finally sat down to read these two novels. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are a fascinating team. Portly, orchid-loving genius Wolfe and tough guy Goodwin are polar opposites, but they work together well. Though these are the first two books in the series, Stout keeps dropping hints that the characters have a long history together.

Fer-De-Lance has Wolfe and Goodwin hunting for the murderer of an immigrant and a college professor. The League of Frightened Men has them hunting for a killer who seems to be bumping off members of a group that had hazed a fellow college student decades ago resulting in his permanent injury.

One of the things I thought was kind of fun with these stories is how un-PC they are. For example, Archie refers to the victim of a hazing prank as "cripple" frequently. No, it's not sensitive, but Archie isn't a sensitive guy. Besides, these were written 70+ years ago. People talked that way then. I'm fascinated by how culture has changed over the years, and because of that, these two books are a blast to read.

Oh, and the mysteries are interesting and well written, too. :)

I love almost all the Nero Wolfe novels [none of the imitators or TV shows match up]. The early novels are usually more complex and well-developed than the later ones. These are the first two, I think, and the first is among the best, the second in the top half of Stout's works. Fer-de-Lance is great; the characters aren't fully grown here, but you can see where Stout started in honing in on the archetypal characters Wolfe and Archie. Wolfe deduces one surprise after another; the chains of subtle reasoning are close to being implausible, but are amazing and convincing anyway, more than in almost any of his other novels. The villain is impressive, almost as smart as Wolfe.

I didn't like 'The League...' as much. It's more far-fetched, indulging Stout's interest in almost psychotic characters. It's still complex, and has some entertaining deductive twists, as well as neat confrontations among characters. But Stout shouldn't have started breaking the rules governing his characters so early [Wolfe leaving the house].

This Bantam edition of Rex Stout's first two Nero Wolfe novels is littered with typographical errors. They are not arcane errors that only grammar geeks would care about; they are careless errors in which words are misspelled, the wrong words used, or entire phrases seem to be missing. A competent proofreader would have caught the typos. Any reader is likely to be annoyed by them.

The pity of it is that the stories themselves are wonderful, but they need a better setting than this. It's like seeing Wolfe's orchids displayed in a cracked, dime-store vase. Don't miss the stories, but choose a different edition.

I enjoy reading everything from ancient history to murder mysteries and spy thrillers, butI have found nothing more "fun" to read than Rex Stout books. Stout has developed great characters in Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.