Another Nero Wolfe mystery, this one from the 1950’s. Even though this is obviously much later in Rex Stout’s career, he made a conscious decision to not have his characters age over time. Archie has still worked for Wolfe for about ten years. Archie is still in his late 20’s, early 30’s, Wolfe is in his mid-to-late 50’s. The only changes to the brownstone and the rest of the environment is the presence of a television set which Wolfe never watches for more than a minute or two at a time before he turns it off in disgust.
\n
\nNero Wolfe is a slightly more appealing character in this book than in Some Buried Caesar<\/i> – he actually shows some compassion and sympathy for other people. He’s still manipulative as hell, and as cranky as he’s ever been, but his motivations for pursuing the case are a bit more acceptable to an ordinary reader.<\/p>\n
It’s also a tough book to discuss without giving major spoilers. Pretty much everything in the book turns out to be vital to the resolution of the plot – with the possible exception of Wolfe’s snit at his butler\/chef Fritz for preparing his dinner differently than Wolfe was expecting. Even so, the consequences of that snit play out into a multiple murder case in an unexpected and fascinating web of events.<\/p>\n
Oh, and speaking of webs: the title of the book has nothing to do with actual spiders. There’s a mystery woman who was seen wearing a pair of golden spider earrings.<\/p>\n
Page Count: 206<\/p>\n
Total page count: 4861<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another Nero Wolfe mystery, this one from the 1950’s. Even though this is obviously much later in Rex Stout’s career, he made a conscious decision to not have his characters age over time. Archie has still worked for Wolfe for … Continue reading