Stout, Rex. Golden Spiders. Collins Fontana Books, 1954.
Reason read: the slog continues.
Golden Spiders begins in the kitchen. Nero Wolfe likes his sterling pie a very particular way and when it isn’t prepared to his liking, you guessed it, he sulks and refuses to eat Fritz’s prepared dish. Archie, ever the trickster, decides to punish Wolfe for his churlish behavior by allowing a young boy to interrupt Wolfe’s makeshift meal. Young Pete Drossos has an interesting tale about a damsel in distress. She was wearing spider earrings and Pete swore she asked him to find a cop. When the boy ends up dead as the result of a hit and run, the next day Wolfe is visited by the boy’s mother. With four dollars and twenty cents from Pete’s piggy bank, she pleads for Wolfe to solve her son’s murder. The plot thickens when the man thought to be driving the car that killed Pete is also a victim of vehicular homicide. Matthew Birch was an agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service was killed by the same car on the same day. By taking this case, Wolfe solves more than Pete and Matthew’s murder as he is thrust into a blackmail scheme targeting poor immigrants.
Death by automobile is a favorite way to die in a Nero Wolfe mystery.
As an aside, on Columbus/Indigenous Peoples Day I read the line about Columbus running into a continent he didn’t expect.
Book trivia: in the introduction, written by Linda Barnes, gave a walk-through of the house rules at 325 West 35th Street: the times in the plant room, rules during meals, and how to treat guests. Linda called Golden Spiders atypical. I would argue that Black Mountain is the most atypical Nero Wolfe story thus far.
Music: “Oh What a Beautiful Morning.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the never-ending chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 289). Just kidding.
