BOOK

Rex Stout, Some Buried Caesar/The Golden Spiders. So you’ve never read a Nero Wolfe mystery and want to know the best way to make the acquaintance of the portly detective who raises orchids, never leaves his New York brownstone on business, and leaves the legwork (and narration) to his trusty assistant Archie Goodwin. What’s your next move? I suggest that you order a copy of this double-decker Bantam paperback that reprints two of the best Wolfe novels, the first originally published in 1939 and the second in 1953. Rex Stout’s witty, fast-moving prose hasn’t dated a day, while Wolfe himself is one of the enduringly great eccentrics of popular fiction. I’ve spent the past three decades reading and re-reading Stout’s novels for pleasure, and they have yet to lose their savor (TT).