Bibliophilic Friday: A Review of Fer-de-lance by Nancy L. Eady

        I grew up as a Navy junior. (My sister insists that there are Army brats and Navy juniors.) Until I was 16, the year my parents divorced in that great naval metropolis of Montgomery, Alabama, we moved every two to three years. When you move with the Navy, the amount they will move for free is restricted by weight. Since books weigh a great deal, and we already had a lot of them, book space was at a premium. Since all three of us girls were big readers, libraries were very important to us.

          When you move frequently, you find permanence in factors beyond geography. One of the fixtures of life that comforted me was the sure knowledge that wherever we moved, there would be a library with some Nero Wolfe books. The Nero Wolfe series was written by Rex Stout. When I became an adult, I resolved to own at least one copy of each book in the series. I’m not looking to own first editions or anything; the shabbiest, dog-eared paper back counts. But over the years the collection grew very slowly until the Nero Wolfe books started coming out on Kindle. I’m still not sure I have every book, but I’ve got a decent start, anyhow.

          The very first Nero Wolfe book, Fer-de-lance, was published in 1934 during the Great Depression. A fer-de-lance is a pit viper from South America with extremely potent venom. To tell you the significance of the snake and its venom would give away key points in the book, so I’ll leave it to your imagination. The book itself is a fun read, introducing many of the key characters in the series, not least of which is the protagonist who tells the story, Archie Goodwin, and his boss, Nero Wolfe. It’s hard to believe that a detective who weighs an eighth of a ton, never leaves his house except in extraordinary circumstances and then only if Archie is driving him, raises orchids on the third floor and has a live-in housekeeper and gourmet cook, can be successful but with Archie to do the leg work for him, Wolfe manages. In fact, he is successful enough to maintain the three-story brownstone in New York City and three full-time staff members, Archie Goodwin, the detective who does Wolfe’s leg work, Fritz Brenner, the housekeeper/gourmet cook, and Theodore Horstmann, the gardener who tends the orchids.  

Fer-de-Lance sets the tone for the rest of the series, which continued to be written by Rex Stout until 1975 with the publication of A Family Affair. Mr. Stout died on October 27, 1975. Fer-de-lance is narrated by Archie Goodwin; as with most books in the series, his delivery is fast paced, just enough tongue-in-cheek to recognize that he is a man of the world and yet serious enough about the taking of human life and bringing the killer to justice to keep you rooting for Wolfe and Archie to be successful. The denouement of Fer-de-lance ends with a stunning act on Nero Wolfe’s part, whether gallant or horrific I will leave for you to decide when you hopefully read the book.