A short time back, when writing a blog column about second bananas, I mentioned Archie Goodwin, able bodied assistant to sedentary sleuth Nero Wolfe, the hero of a multitude of mid-century mysteries by author Rex Stout. Last year, Bantam put out a twofer reissue of Stout’s first Wolfe/Goodwin book, Fer-de-Lance, and the second, The League of Frightened Men. I have been reading it in my spare time, and admiring the pair of novels greatly for their cleverness, their patina of genteel aging, and the insightful introduction by contemporary mystery writer Loren D. Estleman. Estleman brought up a point he felt was central to the success of the series, and I found myself in strong agreement: “Series are seldom read in order. By the time the average reader discovers a continuing character the chronicle is usually well advanced, and except in the case of those dreary series whose titles are numbered prominently on the covers, he has no way of knowing at what point in the saga the book he has just acquired takes place. This can cause confusion, particularly if the next book he reads is an earlier entry in which the hero he knows as widowed appears with his wife, or having quit smoking and drinking is seen puffing and guzzling happily away with no explanation for his relapse. Rex Stout avoided this situation by the simple expedient of never changing his characters. The Nero Wolfe and Archie of A Family Affair, the 46th (and last) book in the epoch of West 35th Street, are essentially the same thought-and-action team we meet for the first time in Fer-de-Lance.” Remarkably, even in the first book, the reader gets the sense that Wolfe and Goodwin have quite the history, with the reader dropping in somewhere in the middle years, and that their relationship of curmudgeonly employer and smart-aleck factotum/narrator has been polished to a fine lustre over time.
The stories are told in the first person by Archie Goodwin, detective by trade but wiseacre by avocation, who takes an inordinate delight in poking fun at his portly and deskbound employer, occasionally to his face (albeit quite obliquely) but more often in the narrative (“He shook his head, moving it a full half-inch right and left, which was for him a frenzy of negation.”). A certain amount of sharp-edged badgering on Archie’s part is called for, to be sure; Wolfe abhors working, and requires constant reminders of the dwindling state of his finances in order to get him motivated to take a case. Left to his own devices, he would while away his time gourmandizing, tending his beloved orchids, and making cranky observations about the progress of technology (“I turn on the television rarely, only to confirm my opinion of it.”).
Many of the references to events or personages are quite dated, of course: the girls are compared in beauty to Greta Garbo rather than Scarlett Johansson; the high rollers drive not Rollers, but powerful Pierce Arrows; a pay phone costs a nickel (although that rises to a dime later in the series). That said, the prose is quite contemporary, and not at all stilted, an easy read for someone weaned on modern-day mysteries, particular those of the wisecracking first-person persuasion. If you think about it, it is a fairly short list of writers who manage to sound contemporary even when far removed from their time, particularly so in genre fiction which tends toward caricature much of the time. Rex Stout figures prominently among the small handful of mystery writers (along with fellow luminaries Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain) who comprise that elite group.
Posted by bruce 
Posted by bruce 
Posted by bruce 
Archie Goodwin: the wisecracking babe-appreciating narrator of Rex Stout’s renowned Nero Wolfe series. Nero Wolfe never leaves the house, dividing his time among eating, drinking, tending his beloved orchids, and occasionally, when his cash stash is dwindling, reluctantly putting his brain to work solving mysteries. Archie does all the legwork, takes cheerful and regular potshots at his employer’s sybaritic lifestyle, and occasionally contributes a bit of insight into the mystery. But only occasionally, and even then it is likely to be trumped by Wolfe’s uncanny ability to interpret relevant clues from the comfort of his office armchair.
Meyer: longtime resident of Ft. Lauderdale’s Bahia Mar Marina, in the legendary John D. MacDonald’s influential series featuring Meyer’s neighbor and occasional protégé Travis McGee. Although entitled to the honorific “Doctor” (he is an economist by profession, although largely retired), he demurs politely: “Just Meyer, please.” He is the go-to guy for Travis McGee whenever McGee’s street smarts fail him and he needs the input of someone with “book learnin”. To all indications he is independently wealthy, or at least strongly self-sufficient, although he occasionally shares in the spoils of one of McGee’s well-intentioned “recovery” scams. The amiably ursine Meyer dispenses measured advice over a chess board, piloting McGee back to the morally acceptable path when his libido carries him too far afield.
Tomlinson: the New-Aging hippie compatriot of Randy Wayne White’s Gulf Coast marine biologist protagonist Doc Ford. Tomlinson is ex-CIA, covert ops, witness to and perpetrator of unspeakable acts in a past he tries daily to exorcise with whatever drugs may be at hand. He is, by most measures, an amiably stoned artefact of the sixties. That said, his CIA training has come to Doc Ford’s aid on more than one occasion, and he can be counted on to do the right thing, albeit in his own time, as I’ve noted in 
Joe Pike: the baddest good guy of all, onetime second banana to Robert Crais’ laid back PI Elvis Cole, and now promoted to star of his own books, 2007’s The Watchman, and the upcoming The First Rule. The Cole books are related in the first person by the protagonist, who accords Joe Pike deference and occasionally awe, in addition to strong friendship. The Pike books are written in the third person, in a voice more serious than that of Elvis Cole (who, by the way, makes an appearance as a larger-than-minor character, but by no means a second banana). The taciturn ex-Ranger and ex-cop has grown over the years, from a cartoonish one-dimensional character to a complex and dangerously charismatic protagonist. Maybe this is the reason for the promotion? (Note: rumor has it that Crais intended to kill off Joe Pike after his first appearance, an idea that Pike reportedly rejected out of hand!)
Such is the case with the newest “Dalziel and Pascoe” book by Reginald Hill, Midnight Fugue. For those unfamiliar with the series, there are some twenty-four installments at this point. They feature a pair of Yorkshire cops, Peter Pascoe and “Fat Andy” Dalziel, whose surname is inexplicably pronounced “Dee-ell” with the accent on the “ell”. (A small digression: England is rife with these names that nobody can decipher: Talliaferro, pronounced “Tolliver”; Featherstone-Haw, pronounced “Fanshawe”, the list goes on.) Nobody dares call Dalziel “Fat Andy” to his face, but when he is mentioned in the third person, the word “Andy” is never spoken without the pejorative qualifying adjective. Two books back, it looked like we were going to lose Fat Andy, as he had the misfortune to be at ground-zero just in time for a terrorist bombing. A protracted stay at a seaside sanatorium has brought him partway back to his feisty former self, but it seems he is still not firing on all eight cylinders.
