Fer-De-Lance

Written by Rex Stout

Narrated by Michael Prichard

As any herpetologist will tell you, the fer-de-lance is among the most dreaded snakes known to man. When someone makes a present of one to Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin knows he's getting dreadfully close to solving the devilishly clever murders of an immigrant and a college president. As for Wolfe, he's playing snake charmer in a case with more twists than an anaconda-whistling a seductive tune he hopes will catch a killer who's still got poison in his heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
• Release date: Feb 6, 2007
• ISBN: 9781415938249

Rex Stout

Rex Todhunter Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe and assistant Archie Goodwin. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century. Rex passed away in 1975.

Reviews for Fer-De-Lance

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Such was procedural; we had moved into a new house. I was introduced to Archie Goodwin alongside to supervising one's own property. One needs time for one's orchids. These remain the staples.

[ellelainey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love love love Nero Wolfe stories. I'm a sucker for a good murder mystery or crime story. I wanted to read this entire series from start to finish but was missing a few of the books, so it's been put on hold for a while.

Fer De Lance was brilliant. Archie was great and Nero was his usual eccentric self.

[dmmjlllt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Holds up reasonably well, given that this is the third or fourth time I've listened to it.Amazing how many of the elements of the series are already in place.

[sasham-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is a bit sexist and racist in that old fashioned unthinking way. Of cousre I may be misinterpreting some of the slang. The story is good and told entirely from Archie Goodwin's POV. Will Appeal to people who enjoy Sherlock and Miss Fisher

[marcusbastos-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first book by Rex Stout. I liked the story, specially the main characters (Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin). The irony and wisdom of Nero Wolfe combines with the promptness and intelligence of Goodwin. The art of solving a crime puzzle was performed.

[mysterymax_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Finding a unique method of murder is a huge challenge for the mystery writer and I must say that while poison is not unique the method in which it was delivered was extremely so. It was a great way to begin a series that has held fans steadfast for 80 years. Wolfe and Goodwin are America's Holmes and Watson and deservedly so.

[bookswoman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the first book in the highly entertaining Nero Wolfe series. Most of the recurring characters make their appearance here although there are some that are still waiting for their turn in the pages. The best thing about this book is that it contains my favorite quote by Archie Goodwin, where he says "go to hell, I'm reading".

[brandon2law · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this because my grandfather is a big fan of Stout's. I'm on the fence about Stout at this point, as this is his first novel, I can only assume his writing will improve. The story is entertaining, Nero Wolfe is quite entertaining. The mystery is clever and the plot is well developed. I just can't put a finger on what I found annoying about reading it.

[wildbill_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first book in Rex Stout's lengthy Nero Wolfe series. It was written in 1934 and I liked the period touches that remind me how much life in America has changed. The main characters, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, complement each other well and bear some resemblance to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson who supposedly were favorites of the author. Although Goodwin is closer to a noir detective than the strictly English Dr. Watson. Wolfe as a detective who never goes out of his house and spends four hours a day with his orchids qualifies as an eccentric and displays the arrogance and genius of Holmes. The house on 35th street in New York City with a live in cook round out the resemblance to the Holmes stories. While the rest of the characters in the book were well written I cannot say the same for the plot. The first half is interesting and has some surprises but after that I could see what was going to happen far in advance.The last half of the book is not as much a mystery as a morality play. Wolfe exhibits the same attitude as Holmes towards the law. He engineers the ending to cheat the law and see that right is done.There was enough that I enjoyed that I will proceed with the series. It could be fun to read a series of sixty nine books in order and I have the feeling that they will get better.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In this book I got acquainted with a pair of sleuths as memorable as Hercule Poroit or Lord Peter Wimsey. Or rather Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, since in some ways Archie Godwin is to Nero Wolfe what Dr Watson is to Holmes. Archie is our narrator, the one who gives us a look at Nero's genius--but he's also less and more than Watson. He's not a friend to Wolfe, he's an employee--but since Nero is an eccentric recluse who never leaves his West 35th Street brownstone in New York City, Archie is also his legman--brawn to Nero's brain, and the two characters couldn't be more distinct in voice, manner and figure--Archie athletic, a scrappy fighter with a sassy, folksy tone--and milk is his drink. Nero Wolfe? Well, he's cultured, educated, sedentary, fat--but more than that, he at times reminds me of a Severus Snape or Gregory House--he doesn't suffer fools gladly, and can slice them into little pieces with a razor sharp mind--making him rather fun to read. The plot involving the murders of an Italian Immigrant and a wealthy patrician college president hung together well, with more than one clever twist, and this was a fun period piece, set in the Prohibition Era--the first in the series and published in 1934--but it's Archie and Nero and their interactions that really make this so fun to read.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the best of the Nero Wolfe series. The huge detective and his bon vivant sidekick Archie are one of the detective pairs, but the plots are more exciting and a lot less formulaic than several other classic detective series. They can't help seeming dated to a modern reader, but that makes them more interesting -- if no one is yet writing historical crime fiction about NY in the 30's and 40's, these books may inspire them.

[mmyoung_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very much a book of its times - noticeable lack of continuity with latter books in the series and some editorial gaffes -- one can see in why it was popular at the time and how it anchored a new series. Goodwin is a fairly standard adequate detective -- though far more involved and intelligent than most sidekicks and Wolfe is amazingly fully there in this first book in which he appears.

[cmbohn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first Nero Wolfe story. I was surprised by how the characters are already complete in their quirks and their relationships with one another. I wouldn't say it's my favorite in the series, but I did enjoy it enough to look for another audiobook.

[yosarian_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first Nero Wolfe book that Rex Stout wrote and the first Wolfe book I read, though it certainly won't be the last. I've always loved the hardboiled detectives of America, authors like Chandler, Hammett, Himes and Block but I've recently started reading the more genteel English detective stories and this is a perfect combination of both the styles of detective fiction. The cerebral Nero Wolfe who, being a "mountain of a man" stays at home, refusing to go out but instead pieces the clues together by deduction and the streetwise and 'hardbolied' assistant Archie Goodwin who goes out to interview people, do the leg work and collect the clues necessary for Nero to make his amazing leaps of deduction. As one reviewer called the pairing it is like; "Mycroft Holmes working alongside Sam Spade".the story Rex introdces the world to Nero Wolfe with doesn't quite have the human complexity of Raymond Chandler but it does have the language and sense of the time in which it was written that he does and it also has a story with enough ingenuity and originality to rival Conan Doyle, Poe's detective Dupin or Agatha Christie with an eloborate murder weapon, some neat twists and turns and enough clues that the reader can look back and exclaim; "of course! how could I not see that?", though of course I don't want to spoil it for any newcomer and reveal any here. It also has that great relationship between the private detective and DA's office that Chandler and Hammett have, the push and pull of them rejecting each others help but needing them and the threats by the DA that Archie neatly sidesteps.This is a book and, hopefully, series i could happily recommend to fans of detective fiction and I will certainly be re-reading this myself so it gets 4 stars.

[jibrailis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fer-de-Lance is the first of the Nero Wolfe mysteries, chronicling Nero Wolfe, a fat, erudite genius who loves food and orchids, and Archie Goodwin his street-savvy assistant. In Fer-de-Lance a woman comes to Wolfe and Archie asking them to find her missing brother, a case that grows more complex when they get involved in the murder of a man whom nobody would want to murder, a deadly game of golf, and snakes.The synopsis sounds kind of silly, but Fer-de-Lance is a worthwhile book. I first got into Nero Wolfe by watching the television series but the books live up to the show (not surprising because the show is supposed to have stuck fairly faithfully to canon). Rex Stout has the ability not only to be good at plotting mysteries but good at writing– his prose crackles along sharp enough to cut. Wolfe and Archie are both intriguing 3D characters with their own quirks and follies. The background characters have depth too. You end up feeling kind of sorry for the villain. Stout is also good enough to characterize both women as well as men; though there are echoes of old-fashioned attitudes towards women (and foreigners), Stout does not turn his women into beautiful playboy bunnies.The plot of Fer-de-Lance isn’t spectacular but it carries its own weight and neatly, efficiently ties its loose ends together. It’s one of the better detective novels I’ve read in the past while.

[bookswamp · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Book 1, 1934; The "First" of the Nero Wolfe books, as mostly the Firsts belong to the Bests. Nero Wolfe wagers a 10,000 $ bet with the district attorny for the innocence of his client's mother, the client being a young girl. "modern" in the 1930s...

[pw0327 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is remarkable in two ways. One is in how consistent the writing has been in the series, and the second is how true the television series on A & E had been in presenting the stories. Unless you checked the chronology, or nitpicked throughout the story, most readers would not be able to find any discontinuity or breaks in flow or inconsistency in style in this story. I was hard pressed to believe that this is the first book in the series. Rex Stout made no special effort to introduce the characters that we all know and love in this book. They were introduced, but to no great fanfare, very little background was given, yet he was able to get the reader involved in the plot. Archie starts out in his inimitable style, as does Nero Wolfe. The intelligence, was there, the styling is there, and the eccentricities are there. I came to the Nero Wolfe mysteries through the A & E series: Nero Wolfe - The Complete First Season and Nero Wolfe - The Complete Second Season. It struck me while reading this book as to how true to the stories the producers were in putting the same ethos and peculiarities. The furnishings were very well described in the book, and the show did a remarkable job filling in the blank spots. The story itself was classic Nero Wolfe, lots of thing going on to derail the line of reasoning, yet everything falls together brilliantly. Stout doesn't overly indulge in springing surprises, always a turnoff in a good mystery, nor does he telegraph his hand until the very end. The mystery was well paced and the dialog was clever and streetwise, all at the same time. The book was written in 1933, so one would expect the dialog top be very corny and conspicuous in its datedness, but it wasn't really noticeable, besides, this gives the story a noirish spin that is both entertaining and cool sounding. This book, being the first book in the series, is an anomalous book because one would expect something that is less than perfect from a first book. Even though this book isn't perfect, it is, however, quite satisfactory.

[wormread · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love this book. Despite being the first Nero Wolfe book, it has no rough edges. Both the characters and plot move very smoothly.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Even though it is his first Wolfe and Archie novel, and about a snake, I still like this as well as the others. The characters burst forth almost fully conceived. Stout tackles many issues in this book, honor, justice and truth, which are not spoken of much today.

[BettyinTexas · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What fun to listen to the first Nero and Archie adventure! There is a lot going on, plenty of Archie action and Nero ego. My favorite was the foray into finding out what the caddies knew; all the prep Nero did to understand the terminology and equipment of golf so the questioning went smoothly, and Archie's practical participation and insights. Have to say that Fritz gives a special flavor to all the Wolfe mysteries.

[asxz-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hmm... hard to know where to place this between Hammett and Chandler. It's unashamedly quirky and mannered. It's also a little long which feels like an unusual criticism of early noir. Archie Goodwin is good value, but I imagine the repeated interviews in Nero Wolfe's office must get old. Not sure when I'll pick up another.

[meredy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Six-word review: Classic mystery still delivers satisfying entertainment.Extended review:Following an impulse to renew my former familiarity with the Nero Wolfe series after forty-plus years, I began with a used paperback of the first one, Fer-de-Lance, which I purchased online. This happens to be a 1992 reissue from Bantam, and it begins with an introduction by one Loren D. Estleman, whom I don't know. Estleman gives a brief overview of the series and observes that there's no need to worry about reading the books in order because Rex Stout avoided the problem of confusing chronology "by the simple expedient of never changing his characters." How he got them right from the very beginning is a marvel that I had never contemplated before.I approached this reread with very few memories of specific cases and none of the outcomes, meaning that I could read them all as if new. What I remember--no spoiler here--is the framework: the house setup, the daily routine, the relationship between Wolfe and Archie, the final showdown scene, and how the culprit is always outed in the end. I'm delighted to return to that world-righting certainty, especially after a few too many contemporary murder mysteries in which the author decided to treat us to existential angst instead of a satisfying solution.Estleman concludes the introduction with this paragraph:This is a world where all things make sense in time, a world better than our own. If you are an old hand making a return swing through its orbit, welcome back; pull up the red leather chair and sit down. If this is your first trip, I envy you the surprises that await you behind that unprepossessing front door.I can't remember the last time, if ever, I was ushered into a book by an introduction that addresses repeat readers. That alone suggests how well the series holds up.Not that this 1934 novel fully withstands scrutiny with a 21st-century lens; dated references aside (how many of us remember Decoration Day?), there are clear, inescapable instances of ethnic and gender stereotyping and prejudice that would never get past the guardians of PC today. For example, one character is suspect because he "look(s) like a foreigner"--a defect that narrator Archie expresses using an epithet that I've never heard before, but that plainly isn't very nice; and young female office workers are girls, but when one is replaced by a male of the same age, he's a man.However, I do believe that we have to allow for attitudes that are products of their place and time, which is not to condone them, but neither is it to condemn them for not being three-quarters of a century ahead of their time. I'm certainly not going to deny myself the pleasure of revisiting the world of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin on that account. Not when I know that I can rely on it, just as Estleman says, to present a place where truth, order, and justice prevail. That's what I want from an old-fashioned murder mystery, that and the illusion that real life could sometimes work that way. Because the world I come from doesn't.Fer-de-Lance brings us a full-scale exhibition of Nero Wolfe's eccentricity, audacity, and blazing brilliance right from the start: a missing-persons inquiry leads straight to a deduction of murder from a few seemingly unrelated clues. Finding hard evidence to back up what appears to be a bizarre conjecture becomes the task of Wolfe and his associates. Wolfe allows neither convention nor possible legal impediment to stand in the way of his pursuit of the truth.Although the climactic final confrontation scene that is the hallmark of a Nero Wolfe mystery does not occur in this initial episode, everything necessary is present. The story drew me in, held my attention, fulfilled its promises, and delivered a satisfactory ending. How nice to know there are several dozen more where this came from.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is not only the first Nero Wolfe, but one of the most ingenious. Wolfe is first asked to find a skilled Italian workman who has vanished; then he connects this to the apparently natural death of a respected university president on a golf course, and ultimately deduces tat the murderer intended quite a different target. The murder method and the evidence are quite orignal, which cannot be said of all the later Wolfe stories (Stout became deplorably fond of cyanide).

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wolfe was more talkative than I remember from the other books! But the main thing I noticed was that this first book in the series reads as if it is from the middle of the series, in the sense that Wolfe & all his cohorts are presented as having been together for a while and this is just one more case. I guess I was expecting something like A Study in Scarlet, explaining how the "gang" got together. Glad I read/listened to it but it isn't as good as some of the other books in the series...This audiobook is a reissue of the old Books on Tape audio cassette recording. I am disappointed in Penguin/Random House in releasing this digital edition without editing out the "this is the end of side one, turn the tape over to listen to side two" bits!

[booksfordinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first Nero Wolfe book, and I've already started on my second :)I remember my pop had the Nero Wolfe mystery magazines and Ellery Queen too, lying around the house when I was young, but never got around to reading them... Lots of fun, the Archie character is worth the price of admission alone... funny how you could just say pretty much anything back then, there was no politically correct police!

[tomdonaghey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fer-De-Lance (1934) (Nero Wolfe #1) by Rex Stout. When her brother goes missing, a young woman who is a friend of one of Wolfe’s regular hirelings, manages to convince Wolfe and Archie to look for him. Through a source they learn that the young man in question had been interested in a news story about the apparent death by stroke of a local college president. Then the young man is found dead.This being the first of the Nero Wolfe stories, Mr. Stout has introduced his cast of characters to a good degree. But it would seen that he also then listened to his family, friends, editors and critics as to the characters themselves. In subsequent novels each of the players have been altered into the people we have come to know. Archie for one has become more of the smooth fixer in later books rather than the… well I suppose goon strikes me as an apt description. Most of the others have been refined into more or less agreeable characters which make the ensuing novels so much more fun to read than this one. Not to say it isn’t a good book, but the troupe of actors upon the page are more likable in later stories, letting the reader to be more capable of enjoying the mystery to a fuller degree.Back to the story. Wolfe comes up with the idea that a rigged driver must have been used to kill the man as he was teeing off during a golf game. The bag he used, and the clubs, have gone missing. Archie starts to look into the dead man’s family and the people he had been golfing with. But when Archie and Wolfe get too close to the guilty party, the killer retaliates with a deadly surprise that is planted within Wolfe’s Brownstone.The case is resolved with a fiery conclusion.This is a great introduction to the methods, habits and style that will carry through the vast majority of the Wolfe books. This was a very enjoyable read. And who knew that Nero Wolfe would be such a trend setter. Self quarantining might not have been created by Stout’s characters, but he certainly set a fine example on how to do it. And pocket a hefty fee at the same time.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin make their debut in this installment that has them seeking the murderer of an Italian. Archie has a little cheekier attitude than many literary sidekicks. The mystery itself was mediocre with a pretty obvious conclusion. It is, however, the first in series of a well-regarded literary sleuth. There are references to prior cases in the text which sometimes leave the reader wanting to know more about the inference made. I could have lived without the snake. It's definitely a product of the time it was written.

[cyderry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This mystery was written in the early 20th century. I'm not sure how I feel about it. The plot was okay, the characters were a bit stereotypical. The solution predictable.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At the request of one of Nero Wolfe's sometime employees, Wolfe investigates the disappearance of an Italian immigrant. The police hadn't shown any interest in searching for the missing man when his disappearance was reported to them. Wolfe's investigation leads to a surprising connection with the death of a prominent man. In order to solve the mystery of the missing immigrant, Wolfe must investigate the prominent man's death.Although this is the first of the Nero Wolfe mysteries, it doesn't read like a first-in-series book. Archie Goodwin, the first-person narrator, has been working for Wolfe for seven years, and he refers to some of their earlier cases. The book was first published during the Depression and there are some indirect references to difficult economic conditions. For instance, when introducing Fred Durkin, the employee who asked Wolfe to look for the missing man, Archie reveals that Durkin's status had been reduced from salaried to hourly on an as-needed basis, while Archie and one other employee had received a pay cut.Archie Goodwin is one of the most engaging narrators I've come across in crime fiction. He's brighter than Sherlock Holmes' Watson and Hercule Poirot's Hastings, and he's definitely more sarcastic then either of them. If you're one of those Holmes and Poirot readers who secretly wish that Watson and Hastings had a little more backbone, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin just might be the duo for you.

[bontley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Portions reminded me of the pleasure of reading Chandler. Terrific.