9/12/1938 When Archie met Lily

September 12, 1938.  This is a day that should be marked with honor on the calendar of all Rex Stout fans.  It is the day that Archie Goodwin met the love of his life, Lily Rowan. This happens in the first chapter of the sixth Nero Wolfe novel, Some Buried Caesar, and it is certainly one of the most memorable openings in that long series.

The fat sleuth is in upstate New York, heading to a flower show, when his car has an accident.  Wolfe and Archie take a short cut through a pasture, which turns out to have a bull in it.  Archie has to run and tumble over a fence, nearly getting mangled to death by an angry beast, and as he struggles to his feet he hears a woman applauding and  cheering as if he were a circus act.  And that, of course, is Lily Rowan.

But my favorite line in the book is from Wolfe: "If you regard it as a rational project to find a legitimate nocturnal pickwasher, go ahead."  You had to be there.

8/18/1941 Cordially invited to meet death

August 18, 1941.  On this date Bess Huddleston, professional party organizer, came to Nero Wolfe, asking him to investigate letters her clients had received accusing her of misbehavior.  Although she had previously irritated him by asking him to play detective at a "murder party" he agrees to look into the matter.  Soon a particularly horrible death is also invited...

As World War II began Rex Stout spent more of his time on war-related activities and less time on writing, and that meant switching to short fiction.  This was his second novella (after "Black Orchids.")  It was published in American Magazine in April 1942, as "Invitation to Murder," but in the book Black Orchids, it is "Cordially Invited to Meet Death."

6/10/1940 Where There's a Will there's a Wolfe

6/10/1940  This date saw the publication of Rex Stout's Where There's A Will, in which Nero Wolfe tries to solve a crime involving the Secretary of State's family.  It's a weird book, full of symbolism that, to my mind, never goes anywhere.

For instance, the Secretary's wife is June.  Her sisters are May, a college president, and April, an actress.  They call June Juno,  the most powerful goddess in the Roman Pantheon, which naturally makes one think that the spinster genius May resembles the maidenly goddess of wisdom Minerva, and the beautiful April suggests Aphrodite (or Venus).  Then there is their sister-in-law who wears a veil because their brother accidentally show her in the face with an  arrow.  And a disputed will which bequeaths pieces of fruit to the three sisters.  Apples of discord?  It certainly seems like Stout had something mythological in mind here, but I don't know what.

The highlight of the book is the unexpected appearance of a second veiled widow.  The only way to determine who is the phony to yank off the veil with a fifty percent chance of revealing a horrible injury.  Brave Archie Goodwin is strangely reluctant to proceed... 

6/6/2014 The Red Box opens

June 6, 2014.  Rex Stout's first novel about Nero Wolfe appeared in 1934, but it took 80 years before the fat genius detective waddled onto a stage.  Joseph Goodrich adapted The Red Box for a production by Park Square Theatre in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

The Saint Paul Pioneer Press called it "a terrific introduction to the characters and the milieu."  Good heavens!  Is that Wolfe with a cigar?

4/23/2001 Nero Wolfe comes to A&E.

April 23, 2001.  There have been several attempts to bring Rex Stout's brilliant if somewhat pudgy detective to the big or small screen in the U.S.  Two unimpressive movies in the thirties.  A TV pilot in the late fifties with William Shatner as sidekick Archie Goodwin. A pilot/TV movie in the seventies that was pretty good but didn't air because the star, Thayer David, passed away.  In 1981 we had the William Conrad version which we will graciously ignore.

But on this day A&E introduced the best (and so far last) version.  A Nero Wolfe Mystery was produced by Tim Hutton, a dedicated fan of the Corpus, who played Archie Goodwin (inexplicably, he gave the Ohio-born gumshoe a New York accent).  Maury Chaykin was suitably grumpy as the fat man. 

I used to reread Stout books as comfort food when I had a cold.  Now I crank up a DVD of one of these.

4/16/1991 Night of the Ice Storm

April 16, 1991.  This date saw the publication of David Stout's second novel, following the Edgar-winning Carolina Skeletions.  Like his first book, Night of the Ice Storm involves the investigation of a murder that happened decades before.  Reviewer Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times called it  "coolly terrifying" and "killingly suspenseful."

4/6/1950 In the Best Families begins

April 6, 1950.  Nero Wolfe first encountered master criminal Arnold Zeck in And Be A Villain.  He confronted him again in The Second Confession.  It was clear that Reichenbach Falls was approaching.  And on this date the final confrontation began...

 The plot of In The Best Families opens on April 6, 1950. In this book Zeck becomes so threatening that Wolfe flees, abandoning his beloved brownstone (leaving the door open, because with him gone there is nothing valuable left, the insufferable egotist).  His loyal assistant Archie Goodwin is left to cope on his own with no knowledge of where his boss has gone (although no one believes that he doesn't know, which makes it all the more frustrating).  But Wolfe hasn't surrendered, he's merely planning, and months later...

For some reason this book seems to attract the worst covers in the whole Stout corpus.  As the one on the right demonstrates.

3/18/1954 Marko Vukcic is murdered

March 18, 1954.  On this date Marko Vukcic was gunned down in New York City.  Besides being the owner of Rusterman's, a posh eatery, he was also the best friend of Nero Wolfe.  His death led Wolfe and Archie Goodwin on one of their most spectular - and frankly unbelievable - adventures.  The Black Mountain found the rotund detective marching his seventh-of-a-ton through the hills of Yugoslavia, his homeland, in search of the killer.  Does Wolfe find him?  Well, duh.

2/24/1964 A Right to Die is claimed

February 24, 1964.  Rex Stout's A Right to Die begins on this date when an African-American anthropologist named Paul Whipple asks Nero Wolfe to prove his son did not commit a murder.  Obviously it was Stout's opportunity to comment on the civil rights movement, but some fans think it is one of his less successful books because of a tactical error the author made.

You see, Paul Whipple appeared in Too Many Cooks as a college student.  Decades later, here he is with a grown son, and Wolfe and Archie haven't aged a day.  Whipple should have demanded to search their attic for mysterious paintings.

1/29/1966 A doxy dies

January 29, 1966.  On this date Orrie Cather sends Archie Goodwin to do a little investigative burglary and Archie finds a corpse.  So begins Death of a Doxy, written by Rex Stout at the age of 80.  He wrote a few more Nero Wolfe novels after this one, skillful to the end.

Weird cover, huh?

1/16/1981 Nero Wolfe comes to NBC

January 16, 1981.  This date saw the premiere of Nero Wolfe on NBC, starring William Conrad and Lee Horsley.  As a major fan of Rex Stout's great detective I will restrain myself and merely  say that it was worse than bubonic plague.

1/5/1965 The Doorbell Rang begins

January 5, 1965.  On this date Mrs. Rachel Bruner came to Nero Wolfe with a little problem.  The wealthy widow had sent 10,000 copies of an anti-FBI book to people of influence.  Now the FBI wants revenge.

So begins The Doorbell Rang, Rex Stout's most successful, controversial, and  popular novel.

4/22/2001 Nero Wolfe comes to A&E

April 22, 2001.  On this date A&E premiered Nero Wolfe, arguably the best media version of Rex Stout's classic private eye tales.  Tim Hutton is a great fan of the books and he organized the series and played Archie Goodwin.  Murray Chaykin played the big man.  In two seasons they faithfully reproduced about one-quarter of the novels and novellas. 

Two odd things about the show: they had an ensemble cast, so an actor playing a suspect in one episode might be a victim in the next.  Second, they generally set the show in whatever decade the book was written, so stories bounced between the forties, fifties, and  sixties.  

2/19/1951 Murder By The Book begins

February 19, 1951.  This date sees the beginning of Murder By The Book, Rex Stout's fourteenth novel about the fat orchid-hoarding genius private eye, Nero Wolfe.  Technically there is one earlier scene, set in January, but we all know the real action doesn't start until somebody offers Wolfe a fee.  That someone is John Wellman, a Peoria businessman whose daughter was run over and killed.

The solution depends in part on Wolfe's phenomenal memory, both for names and for books.  It is the only book in which Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's trusty assistant, leaves New York for Los Angeles.  Naturally, it rains the entire time he is there.

1/15/1965 A big fish comes to the brownstone

January 15, 1965.  On this day Nero Wolfe wrapped up one of his greatest and most controversial cases, in The Doorbell Rang.  Fans of Rex Stout knows that the book ends with a certain "big fish" coming for a visit.

The book, in which the fat private eye battles the FBI, made Stout more popular than ever, but not with everyone.  John Wayne read it and sent him a note: "Goodbye."

10/18/1933 Nero Wolfe begins to appear

October 18, 1933.  This is a sacred day for many mystery fans.  Rex Stout brought his wife and newborn first daughter home from the hospital and began work on a book he hoped would pay the family bills better than the psychological fiction he had been producing for years.

The result was Fer-de-lance,  the first book to feature Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, two of the greatest characters in mystery fiction.  Over the next forty-one years Stout wrote almost eighty novels and novellas about the fat man and the leg man. 

3/30/1936 The Red Box is opened

March 30, 1936.  The action begins on this date in Rex Stout's fourth novel about Nero Wolfe.  Wolfe is hired to find who killed a model with a poisoned box of chocolates (and no,, in spite of the illustrations on many editions of the book, that is not the red box of the title).  For the first time in the series, Wolfe breaks his rule by leaving the house on business.

The Red Box was filmed twice for Italian television and last year a version adapted by Joseph Goodrich became the first play based on any Nero Wolfe tale.  The world premiere was at the Park Square Theatre in Saint Paul.  

 In my opinion this is the first true Nero Wolfe book.  Until this one Stout was still poking and pushing his characters into their final form.