The Golden Spiders: Rex Stout

I am getting ready to go on a trip to Alabama and I needed a short comfort read to fit in while I am preparing and packing. A Nero Wolfe mystery was just the right book to pick. I am a huge fan of the Nero Wolfe / Archie Goodwin stories, so no matter which book I picked, I would like it. A consideration in picking The Golden Spiders was that I want to re-watch the TV movie adaptation of this book, which was the pilot for the A&E series A Nero Wolfe Mystery, which ran for two seasons in 2001 and 2002.

In this novel, Nero Wolfe uncharacteristically agrees to work with a young boy from his neighborhood on a potential case of possible kidnapping. Before long, Archie and Wolfe and his pack of freelance detectives are investigating a group of people taking advantage of poor immigrants who are seeking help in getting settled in this country.

I don't want to describe the plot more because the joy in reading the Nero Wolfe mysteries is learning the story through Archie Goodwin's narration, and that applies even more in this case. 

This story seemed unusual to me because Archie, Fred, Saul and Orrie actually get into a gun fight with some thugs. Archie often carries a gun, but rarely uses it. The plot is very convoluted and the book is shorter than some Nero Wolfe novels. My copy was 150 pages. The first eight Nero Wolfe novels were all around 300 pages long.

The Nero Wolfe mysteries (all 74 of them) do not need to be read in any order. There is one trilogy that features Nero Wolfe's battle with Arnold Zeck, but even those do not depend on reading in order to enjoy them. I am sure that I read what was available in the library when I read the Nero Wolfe books the first time, in no particular order. The only other book that might not work well as a standalone is the very last one, A Family Affair.

The 74 Nero Wolfe mysteries consists of 33 full-length novels and 41 novellas. Most of the novellas were published first in magazines, then published in sets of 2, 3 or 4 in books. The first novel, Fer-de-Lance, was published in 1934; the last was published in 1975.

In my post on Fer-de-Lance, I listed my favorite Nero Wolfe novels and this was not among them. However, I am very fond of all of the stories of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, and this had some unique qualities. I enjoyed the discussions and arguments between Nero and Archie, and reading about the daily life in Wolfe's brownstone.

This has been more of a mish mash of my thoughts on this book and this series. I am a bit too much tied up in trip plans to do better than this. I highly recommend reading any and all of the Nero Wolfe series. It is not to everyone's taste but the books do have a lot of fans. At this page about Nero Wolfe, he is described as an armchair detective because Wolfe usually solves the crimes from his office. This paragraph describes Archie well:

By introducing Archie Goodwin into the stories -- beginning in the first novel Fer-de-Lance -- Rex Stout successfully combined the Armchair Detective with the more recent Hard-Boiled school. It is Archie who narrates the stories but he is a much more fully developed character than most "Watsons."

I have multiple copies (usually paperbacks) of almost all of the Nero Wolfe books. The three shown here are the editions I have of The Golden Spiders.

 ----------------------------------

Publisher: multiple reprint editions; originally pub. by The Viking Press, 1953
Length:  150 pages
Format: mass market paperback

Series:  Nero Wolfe
Genre:  Mystery