History Literature / NeroWolfe

* InspectorLestrade: Inspector Cramer. Though there are many hints of mutual respect between Cramer and Wolfe throughout the books (as well as between Archie and Sgt. Stebbins), they really don't like each other much. It's often stated that Cramer is not a bad detective, but he has a bad habit of jumping to a preferred conclusion based on obvious evidence and sticking to it without looking harder at anything more subtle.

Brilliant, eccentric cynic Nero Wolfe makes his living as New York City's finest private detective. He charges outrageous fees, usually in the tens of thousands (and we're talking Thirties dollars here), to solve the highest-profile murders -- because, quite frankly, he needs the money. After an adventurous youth in his native Montenegro, he's now fully engaged in the pursuit of self-indulgence, weighing in at "a seventh of a ton" ('to insulate my feelings,' he explains). He literally refuses to leave his home on business -- or most anything else, for that matter -- and has seen to it that there's little reason why he should.

The ''Nero Wolfe'' stories has been adapted for radio, TV, and film. The 2001-2002 A&E series (technically titled ''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'') is one of the more faithful adaptations, remaining firmly set in the amorphous mid-40's-to-60's of the books while lifting large portions of Archie's narration directly from the text. The show was notable for its approach to guest casting -- one-shot characters would be played by the same core group of actors, much like a repertory theater, so that the murder victim one episode might be the murderer the next.

* FBIAgent: An unusually harsh treatment of the FBI for the time in ''The Doorbell Rang''.

* InspectorLestrade: Inspector Cramer. Though there are many hints of mutual respect between Cramer and Wolfe throughout the books (as well as between Archie and Sgt. Stebbins), they really don't like each other much.

A popular EpilepticTree (''created'' by science fiction author John D. Clark in the '50s, but never mentioned in canon) is that Wolfe's father was SherlockHolmes, by Irene Adler of course; the combination of deductive genius, heavyset build and laziness does sound uncannily like the Great Detective's brother Mycroft. The [[Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer Wold Newton Universe]] has Wolfe as the son of ArseneLupin. This is all sometimes extended to name Archie in turn as Wolfe's son, based off Wolfe's cryptic comment in one of the books: "If I were [a Negro], Mr. Goodwin would have to be one too." It's more likely that Wolfe was alluding to the fact that [[ValuesDissonance a white man would never accept a job as the assistant to a black man]] at the time the story was set, but that doesn't stop the speculation.

* FriendlyRivalry: Archie's friendship with the other private detectives Wolfe engages the services of can touch on this at times, particularly Saul Panzer and Orrie Cather. Goodwin will often note, and sometimes fret, that Panzer and Cather seem to be gunning for his job, but the're nevertheless pretty good friends.

* TheCharmer: At some point in the stories, Archie will inevitably be called upon to apply his charms to an attractive woman to try and get information.

* RealityEnsues: The series can be seen as applying this concept to many of the tropes of classic detective fiction. For example, the brilliant cerebral detective who, when he's not solving mysteries, lives a fairly luxurious lifestyle with plenty of leisure time despite having no apparent income is explained by the fact that when he ''does'' solve mysteries, he charges high-to-at-times-the-point-of-extortionate fees for doing so, which in turn gives him something of a mercenary reputation and occasional money troubles. The brilliant AmateurSleuth who's always showing up the [[PoliceAreUseless bumbling]] {{Inspector Lestrade}}s with his razor-sharp deductive skills is consequently resented by pretty much everyone with a badge for it. And so forth.

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Inspector Cramer and the other cops can verge on this; although Wolfe does play fast and loose with the law, Cramer can often let his resentment, jealousy and dislike of Wolfe interfere with his good sense and go out of his way to obstruct Wolfe out of spite, even when it would benefit him more to let Wolfe continue unopposed.

* FriendlyRivalry: Archie's friendship with the other private detectives Wolfe engages the services of can touch on this at times, particularly Saul Panzer and Orrie Cather.

* DeadpanSnarker: Archie is really, ''really'' good at this.

* ComicBookTime: None of the main characters age, but Stout set each story in the current present-day. WordOfGod is that Wolfe is in his mid fifties, Archie in his early to mid-thirties. Stout said he didn't want to write stories that were dated by their setting but also didn't want to have to deal with aging his characters.
** This leads to at least one interesting chronological Gordian knot: In ''Too Many Cooks'' (1938), a young black waiter whom Wolfe impresses is a small but important part of the plot. He returns as a successful middle-aged man, with a case involving his grown son, in ''A Right to Die'' (1964). Wolfe and Archie both clearly recall the earlier case, even though in reality Archie would have been a child and Wolfe in his twenties.

** The short story "A Window for Death" is described in all seriousness in one compilation as containing "glittering international intrigue". How glittering? One of the characters is a uranium miner from ''Saskatchewan''.
* TheDandy: Wolfe is very particular about his clothing. He's especially fond of canary yellow - his pyjamas and shirts are always that colour - and the only time he's shown wearing casual wear is in ''The Black Mountain'', when he's travelling through Montenegro. He's so disturbed by dirt that when he gets a spot on his tie he removes it immediately. Archie is also a dapper dresser, but not to Wolfe's extent - and he rarely describes his own clothing.

* DrinkOrder: Archie's love of milk is a famous subversion of expectation, as {{hardboiled detective}}s are generally associated with hard liquor. He also drinks rye and scotch, if he's had a bad day, and brandy or champagne in celebration. Wolfe, on the other hand, drinks beer and brandy.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Some extra freelance operatives (Bill Gore and Johnny Keems) hardly get used at times before they are either written out or disappear. The most glaring is the smoking Inspector Cramer does in the first five or six books, even smoking a pipe in the first one, which clashes with his ever present cigar which he only chews on in all subsequent books.

* HaveAGayOldTime: Numerous references to 'dicks', ie. detectives (and to Dick as a fairly common male nickname of the time). This becomes especially awkward when 'female dicks' Dol Bonner and Sally Corbett are introduced.

* HeManWomanHater: Nero Wolfe is openly one of these, but strangely enough his misogyny doesn't extend to sexism: Wolfe dislikes women but doesn't actually disrespect them. Archie, on the other hand, ''loves'' women but doesn't always respect them, and frequently pays for it. In one instance he calls a well-dressed feminist a "phony" and her ideas "stupid" -- because women dress well only to attract men and feminists hate men, so a real feminist wouldn't dress well. This, ah, ''fascinating'' theory gets his ass handed to him on a platter when she solves the mystery at the same time Wolfe does.
*** In-universe, Wolfe relates the time he had a rather nasty experience with a FemmeFatale who held a knife to his throat. He actually seems rather tolerant of those females who are at least blunt and to the point and who forsake the "weaker aspect" stereotype. It's worth pointing out that Rex Stout was convinced that there was nothing a woman could do that a man couldn't do better - until he read JaneAusten. The above was probably written to poke fun at ''himself'' for his earlier opinions. See WriterOnBoard below for another example.
** Wolfe's misogyny itself was a complicated example of WriterOnBoard. Wolfe prefers people who display their intelligence openly and who are direct, unemotional, and strong-minded. This is the absolute antithesis of how women of the time were expected to act. Women were trained to hide their intelligence, to act coy and uncertain, and to resort to emotions instead of reason at all times. (Rejecting this training could at give a woman the reputation of "hating men".) Through Wolfe, Stout was actually attempting to skewer the stereotypes that held women in check; unfortunately, he underestimated his male audience's support of these stereotypes and their identification with Nero Wolfe. These readers actually liked female characters to act like silly idiots because they made Wolfe (and by association, themselves) look superior. Stout found this immensely frustrating, as he and his feminist wife were strong supporters of women's rights.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: More like HLP polyamory; it's hard to imagine the four residents of Wolfe's house functioning well without each other. In fact, whenever they are separated -- most notably in 'The Second Confession' -- they kind of fall apart.
** When they are forced to split up Archie goes into the detective business for himself and earns more money than Wolfe ever paid him ''just'' to prove that his loyalty to Wolfe had nothing to do with money.

* WhatTheHellHero: It's actually part of Archie's job to deliver these to Wolfe on a semi-regular basis in order to keep him motivated. He delivers and ''epic'' one in ''The Golden Spiders'' after a boy who visits Wolfe is killed.

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The enduring charm of the series lies in the meeting of their two worlds: 'a recurring miracle', as Wolfe once put it. Archie looks, fights and speaks fluent DashiellHammett with a deft, self-aware touch all his own, and is actually much more likely to out-talk opponents than physically intimidate them ("by God, you'd clown at your own funeral!"). True to his Midwestern roots, he unwinds with a tall glass of milk and often shocks Wolfe by skipping a gourmet dinner for a deli sandwich while on a case. He refuses to be intimidated by anyone, let alone his formidable employer... which is understandable, given that his main duty is to irritate Wolfe out of his cushy routine and into taking cases in the first place (The fact that he's so good at it is the reason why he was even hired).