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Any Nero Wolfe fans?

chubbyalaskagriz

New member
A friend told me I'd love Rex Stout's series about this foodie/detective from the turn of the 19th/20th century. Has anyone ever read his books? Which book(s) would be the best to sample his work?
 
Ideally you'd start with the earlier ones and move forward, Kevin. That way you can see the Archie Goodwin character development. Wolf, himself, never changes.

But, ultimately, it doesn't matter. See which ones your library has and start enjoying.

BTW, Stout, sometime in the late '50s, did a cookbook, "The Nero Wolf Cookbook," which I've been trying to track down.
 
RE: "BTW, Stout, sometime in the late '50s, did a cookbook, "The Nero Wolf Cookbook," which I've been trying to track down."

Really, Brook? WOW! FUN! Now my curiosity is really peaking!
 
Yeah, Kevin, really.

I never bought a copy then---who knew. Far as I know it's the only cookbook dealing with the cuisine and culinary interests of a fictional detective.

As such, I do need to find a copy as part of the research from my own project, The Gumshoe Gourmet, which is an exploration of the influence of food in detective novels.
 
I cannot recall the author or even any of the titles (maybe someone out there recalls?) but there are some books out there that tell stories about a sassy plus-sized lady detective who also enjoys her food. Cuisine is interwoven throughout her tales- and I believe the storyteller has quite a following...
 
Most of the female detectives are sassy, to say the least. But I don't recall a plus-sized one.

If you can track down who she is, and/or the author, I'd appreciate it.

>Cuisine is interwoven throughout her tales<

That's precisely the premise of the book I'm working on. Those people (i.e,, the detectives) are obsessed with food. Most of the time the references have nothing to do with the story line or the immediate action.

It's almost as if all the authors had grown up poor and starving, so spare no opportunity to refer to food.

In one of them that I just finished, for instance, there's half a page taken up describing the household cook's preparations for baking a cake. Half a page! And the action has nothing to do with that passage.

Even Sherlock Holmes suffers from that syndrome. He's always telling Watson things like, "we'll have to take the train to Woofis-On-Tellingsworth. But let's have a sandwich, first."
 
Your idea sounds really fun and entertaining, Brook.

Sorta half-way brings to mind "The Sopranos".

Lotsa food and endless spreads of Italian feasts in all the episodes- and the 2 cookbooks the show inspired were among the best of the year for me, 3-4 years back...
 
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