I just started reading the Nero Wolfe series and so far I’ve been really enjoying them. (Finished the first and halfway through the second.) I really like the characters and the writing. I’m trying to read them in publication order as much as possible, but I am curious - which of the Wolfe novels/stories did you most enjoy and why? Without giving anything away, of course…
I prefer the earlier stories. Wolfe gets out more and solves cases.
The Rubber Band, The Red Box, Some Buried Caeser, Too Many Cooks are all very good.
His collections of short stories are often very good too.
Some of the later books are very good. Death of a Dude is a favorite of mine.
I loved AND BE A VILLAIN, for multiple spoiler-y reasons.
Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for them. One thing I’ll say, Rex Stout had a hell of a vocabulary; my kindle dictionary is getting a workout. Rodomontade, anyone?
I’m with you. My favorites are the ‘30s novels The League of Frightened Men, The Rubber Band, The Red Box, Too Many Cooks (my favoritest of all) and Some Buried Caesar.
Many people will cite The Doorbell Rang (1965), in which Wolfe and Goodwin take on the freakin’ HOOVER FBI as the best ever. Hard to argue with that…it’s superb.
The League of Frightened Men is the one I’m reading now; if the others are of this quality, I’m in for the duration. And it was the TV adaption of The Doorbell Rang that may me decide to check out the novels in the first place.
I like the earliest books the best not particularly because of the stories but because Nero Wolfe belongs in the 30’s (in my head). In the later books when they talk about television and other modern contrivances, it just seems jarring to me.
Of course one of Stout’s gimmicks is that the characters never age and any actual changes are very subtle and probably unintentional. So Archie’s line of patter, designed in and for the 30’s, becomes rather off in the 60’s and beyond.
This is all just my opinion, of course. I think I have run across a few stories that I wanted to throw across the room because the denouement was such a complete letdown, but not many.
BTW, there is another recent thread about how fat Nero Wolfe is supposed to be, and there are some good suggestions in there as well.
A lot depends on what you like about the novels. Fer-de-Lance, the first novel, has a lot of almost everything that made the series great: clever but plausible links between observation and deduction, better-realized characters than Stout usually bothered with, as much action as you generally get from the series (i.e., not a lot), wonderful interviews between Wolfe and suspects/witnesses, and lots of funny examples of Wolfe sandpapering a still rough-around the edges Archie. Some Buried Caesar is cleverly plotted and might be the funniest of the lot, and League of Frightened Men Too Many Cooks Over My Dead Body and The Rubber Band merit the same description. Murder By The Book comes close, as does The Golden Spiders (one of about four or five stories in which Archie actually discharges a firearm).
It might be better for me to tell you which ones I’d leave 'til last. Personally, I don’t have much fondness for these works: A Family Affair, The Doorbell Rang, In the Best Families, Please Pass the Guilt, The Mother/Father Hunts, Champagne for One, A Right to Die, Where There’s a Will, Prisoner’s Base, If Death Ever Slept.
In the upper middle you have stories like The Silent Speaker, Before Midnight, Might As Well Be Dead, The Final Deduction, Gambit, etc. These tend to show off one or two of the goodies I mentioned. An oddity in this area is Too Many Clients, which is a lot of fun but betrays an absolutely pre-adolescent boy’s concept of sex.
As a fan, hate to say this, but I can’t think of a short that you shouldn’t just skip, except for (maybe) Not Quite Dead Enough and Bomb Blast, which were wartime and a little interesting because of that.
With a couple of exceptions, those are among my favorites.
No offense: I’m probably older than you, was introduced to the books in a different order, use language differently, and know more/less than you do about various cultural references. I was in my twenties before I thought chocolate ice cream was a good idea. I like all of these books, and reread them often: if they’re your favorites but not mine, we’re still more alike than not.
Black Orchids.
I love virtually everything Stout wrote on Nero and Archies’ adventures, I will admit a fondness for the “Arnold Zeck” trilogy, featuring the Moriarty to Wolfe’s Sherlock. Suggest you read them all together or get the anthology “Triple Zeck”
*An be a Villian
The Second Confession
In the Best Families*
Dang, I’m with Miss Mapp. Can’t even comprehend a list of best Wolfe/Archie books that wouldn’t include at least one of In the Best Families, The Doorbell Rang, and Prisoner’s Base! De gustibus!
But to the OP, I would come to those in good time rather than reading them straight off. While the Wolfe corpus isn’t really serialized to the point where one must read the books in order (it’s quite easy to pick them up at random), there’s still some growth, backstory revelations, and a few changes in the cast of characters that are best seen chronologically.
That said, a more complete list of my favorites, and I note that what they mostly share is that they draw their dramatic power by (somewhat) pulling the rug out from what loyal readers know to be the standard routine of the Wolfe household, his peccadillos, Archie’s normal insouciance, and even Lt. Cramer/the cops. I love readers being rewarded for knowing long-term characters.
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The Doorbell Rang. Epic and I’d probably put this as my top favorite. Wolfe outdoes himself here!
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In the Best Families. However, it really needs to be saved until you’ve read the earlier two books in the abovementioned list by The Stainless Steel Rat above. This is perhaps one of the two biggest departures from routine.
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Prisoner’s Base. One of the best books for Archie’s character in particular.
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The Black Mountain. In common with ItBF, the biggest departure in style and plot. It too has some antecedents that really should be read beforehand: Too Many Cooks and Over My Dead Body. OMDB is pretty much mandatory. Events won’t mean as much if you aren’t familiar with what, and who, matters to Wolfe, not to mention his history.
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Might as Well Be Dead. Surprisingly strong emotions on display here from the cast of suspects/victims/client(s). Also another relatively big change in the regulars (though not as personally significant as TBM).
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The Red Box. A remarkable villain here.
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Some Buried Caesar.
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Gambit.
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The Golden Spiders. Another of the darker books (“dark” being a relative term; one of the things I adore about Stout is that he straddles the line beautifully between cozy and hard-boiled).
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Murder by the Book. Another great performance by Archie, and one of the twistiest mysteries.
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Plot It Yourself. Like MbtB, a publishing-related plot.
I feel a pang at not including more, but I have to show some moderation! Stout’s my favorite mystery author of all time, and I credit his style for teaching young me (as a beginning writer) a great deal about POV, voice, and unreliable narrators.
Thanks for the tip. AIUI, time advances in the stories but the characters don’t age; so reading them in order would be less disconcerting, to me, than jumping back and forth between eras.
And thanks to all for your responses. Not surprisingly, the favorites of some are the least favorite of others. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to read them all. 
Also I finished The League of Freightened Men (totally did NOT figure it out) and I’m now well into The Rubber Band. I haven’t enjoyed an author this much since Terry Pratchett.
I love the Wolfe stories. I discovered them first from the A&E TV series (which is largely superb, IMO) then starting devouring the paperbacks. Does anyone know if there is a definitive complete collection published anywhere? I’d love to get a giant tome that has them all together in order of publication, but it does not seem to exist.
this is a great value. 7 complete novels in one book. used, it’s $19
Robert Goldsborough wrote 8 Wolfe mysterious.
Are they pretty good?
I just bought the prequel, Archie Meets Wolfe.
My take has always been this: the mystery itself is usually the weakest part of any Nero Wolfe story.
The characters are engaging, the atmosphere is delightful, the dialogue is crisp, and Archie is A great narrator. Stout created a familiar world that was fun to return to. I liked to find out what Wolfe was reading, what Fritz was cooking, what was being discussed at dinner. But plotting was Stout’s weakness, and he just wasn’t a great storyteller. I often got the feeling he picked the guilty party at random! I enjoyed reading MOST Nero Wolfe stories, but was often disappointed or left cold by his case solutions.
My favorite Stout novel was “In the Best Families.” The best story from the pure mystery standpoint was " The Gun With Wings. "
Yes. Not up to Stout, of course. I recall one reference to an object from a Stout novel that seems to have been tossed in just to connect the book to one of Stout’s. It is awkward but mercifully brief.
As a chess player, my favourite is ‘Gambit’.
I think the Goldsborough stories are fine.
I echo Shadowfacts that the TV series with Timothy Hutton is well worth watching.
Finally I recommend two books by the fan club ‘The Wolfe Pack’: