Each time I re-read one of Rex Stout's books about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, I'm always amazed at the author's skill at putting one of these together - combining a fresh plot, usually with some careful twists, with roles within that plot for many of the regular characters who make the series so thoroughly enjoyable. It's like spending an evening with some old friends - and, of course, some surprising enemies and villains. One of my perennial favorites, certainly, is The Golden Spiders, originally published in 1953. There's a lot in The Golden Spiders that really went outside the proverbial box, introducing some new twists to the more-or-less standard story line. Here's what I had to say about it when I first reviewed it on the podcast nearly a decade ago, slightly edited as usual:
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A twelve-year-old boy comes to Nero Wolfe’s door with a most peculiar story: a woman passenger in a car has asked him to call a policeman. The car has driven off, but the boy gets the license plate number. And he remembers the woman was wearing a most unusual pair of earrings – they looked like two, intricate, golden spiders. Before much else can happen, there is a murder. As it turns out, the victim was not the first to die in this case – and will not be the last – and Nero Wolfe finds himself forced to pay attention to a difficult and rather dangerous case, in The Golden Spiders, by Rex Stout.
I make no secret of it: I really enjoy reading and rereading Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries. It’s not so much because of Nero Wolfe, of course; like most readers, I suspect, I find Wolfe can be supremely annoying in his egotistical mannerisms. No, it is Archie Goodwin, the narrator and Wolfe’s right hand (not to mention his legs, eyes and ears), who keeps us going. The sparkling dialogue, the self-deprecating wit, the brilliant way Archie describes the people he interacts with in every story, all make these books quite delightful to me.
Certainly that’s true of The Golden Spiders. It begins almost as a harmless prank: Archie, in the process of needling Wolfe, allows a 12-year-old boy into the office to tell Wolfe about a mysterious woman asking him to get a cop for her. The boy is eventually put off – but unfortunately a great deal of trouble is about to ensue for everyone. Especially the boy.
Wolfe is going to get very angry in this one – and justifiably so, as the bodies begin to fall. Eventually, the investigation is going to lead to a much broader and darker plot – and it will require more than just Wolfe’s usual set-piece closing faceoff in the office to resolve this one.
I’m deliberately being rather vague about the details of the plot, because some of the plot twists are carefully designed to catch the reader off-guard, and I have no intention of spoiling that for you. But, as I said, it is Archie, and his wisecracking – whether in dialogue or in his role as narrator – who carries the story for us.
Some examples:
His observation of an attractive woman who comes to the office:
She was about my age, which was not ideal, but I have nothing against maturity if it isn’t overdone.
Or this marvelous description when he is summoned to Wolfe’s room at breakfast time, to receive early-morning orders. He calls it a special treat, explaining:
On rainy mornings, or even gray ones, Wolfe breakfasts in bed, after tossing the black silk coverlet toward the foot because stains are bad for it, but when it’s bright, he has Fritz put the tray on a table near a window. That morning it was bright, and I had my treat. Barefooted, his hair tousled, with his couple of acres of yellow pajamas dazzling in the sun, he was sensational.
As I say, it’s Archie’s observations that carry so many of the books along. As for the mystery, it’s a relatively complex one. The solution depends on some very physical detective work by Archie and other members of Nero Wolfe’s squad of private detectives, providing a bit more onstage violence than we usually see in these books. And the final unraveling of the plot seems a bit arbitrary to me, requiring outside intervention by an eyewitness.
But that’s carping against what really seems to me to be one of the better Wolfe stories. The characters include some truly unpleasant villains, but there are also longer-than-usual appearances by such regulars as Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather and Fred Durkin. As author Linda Barnes notes, in her introduction to a 1994 paperback edition of The Golden Spiders,
“Wolfe hates interruptions during meals. He dislikes children. He abhors deviations from his schedule. All of these indignities are heaped upon him in The Golden Spiders. They grate. They affect his appetite. They cause him to accept a retainer of four dollars and thirty cents from – horrors! – a teary-eyed woman."
I think that sums it up pretty well. If you enjoy Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe, and, most particularly, Archie Goodwin, then you’ll enjoy The Golden Spiders.
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You can listen to the original podcast review by clicking here.
Next: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie.
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