Death of a Dude

So you think you know Nero Wolfe, do you. So you’re reasonably sure that only the most dire emergency will induce Nero to heave his home on West Thirty-fifth Street, and that no case since his early days could make him budge from Manhattan Island or miss a meal cooked by his own precious Fritz? Well, brace yourself! In this latest full-length Nero Wolfe adventure, Nero not only leaves house, cook, and orchid planes, but also flies nearly cross-continent to Montana to join Archie Goodwin on a lavish but very private dude ranch. Here he settles down to solve murder by rifle shot, resigned to the necessity of performing such unWolfean activities as tramping through underbrush, wading in an icy trout stream, eating canned soup, and attending a rowdy Saturday night hoedown in a cattle town. He also has to deal with a young unmarried mother, some uncooperative cowhands, a highly belligerent sheriff, an off-Broadway actress, and any number of chairs which don’t begin to fit his bulk. Yet, throughout, he remains the same inimitable Nero Wolfe. How does Rex Stout know enough about the Far West to write this novel? Every summer, for a large part of his life, he spent his time riding pack trains, fishing mile-high streams, and enjoying night after night around campfires, yarning with genuine cowpunchers. So there isn’t a misplaced piece of harness or an unauthentic Western Vista in this, one of the funniest, most engaging, and most out-of-doors of all Nero Wolfe adventures.