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Introduction

Mysteries are a mind game. Lovers of the form are drawn to the puzzle. Who done it and why? Will good triumph over evil and how? In the pulse-pounding race to the solution, will the writer or the reader cross the finish line first?

In this particular sport, the most important muscles are the theoretical ones between the participants' ears. Intellect is everything. A canny detective armed with gobs of gray matter will beat out the Uzi-wielding bad guy every time.

Which partly explains the enduring appeal of Nero Wolfe.

Wolfe is the large lump of calm at the center of the storm's eye in Rex Stout's eponymous mystery series. Evil doesn't move Nero Wolfe. Nothing, short of a good meal or a serious beer shortage, could. This supersleuth is a supersloth, so unfit and lazy he lacks the steam to lean over and retrieve a weighty retainer check from his desk.

For that and other onerous physical chores, he has Archie Goodwin, his fleet-footed, lighthearted, adventurous assistant. While Archie does all necessary legwork and Fritz, Wolfe's household retainer, attends to the master's ravenous appetites, Wolfe's sole responsi

vi Introduction

bility is to sit back and revel in the whirring of his keen, insightful mind.

At the critical moment, the cylinders are guaranteed to dick into perfect alignment, allowing Wolfe to finger the suspect from the comfort of his favorite chair in his office in his elegant brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street.

Of course, the moment must conform to the detective's unyielding schedule. During set mealtimes and the four hours each day Wolfe spends tending his ten thousand orchids, murder and mayhem simply have to wait.