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kyburgWell, calling it a “thriller” might be overstating things, it’s a detective novel. It’s “Before Midnight” by Rex Stout, part of the Nero Wolfe series he wrote between 1920 and 1975. I found a cache of all of them as ebooks so I’m re-reading some and discovering others.
If you’re not familiar with Rex Stout’s work I’d give it a whirl – it’s extremely intelligent and funny, and while the early work is somewhat a product of its time it’s less so than most, and improves as time goes on. They’re in the Sherlock Holmes style – Archie Goodwin, a streetwise but well-read Man Of Action, narrates his adventures as the hired man for Nero Wolfe, a cranky genius who never leaves his home and solves mysteries professionally in order to fund his love of fine food and his true passion, which is breeding orchids.
Before Midnight’s an ok one to start with, but you could also try some of the short stories (And Four To Go is a good mini-anthology) or try and catch some of the Tim Hutton/Maury Chaykin TV series that A&E did, which is very faithful to the book. If you can get them, Too Many Cooks and Some Buried Caesar are both excellent.
Stout wrote outside of temporal continuity, so not much changes in terms of circumstance from book to book – time advances, like fashions change and they get a TV and WWII happens and such – but Nero and Archie don’t age, and not much about their circle of acquaintances changes, so you can basically pick up any book and be up to speed pretty quickly.
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If you’re not familiar with Rex Stout’s work I’d give it a whirl – it’s extremely intelligent and funny, and while the early work is somewhat a product of its time it’s less so than most, and improves as time goes on. They’re in the Sherlock Holmes style – Archie Goodwin, a streetwise but well-read Man Of Action, narrates his adventures as the hired man for Nero Wolfe, a cranky genius who never leaves his home and solves mysteries professionally in order to fund his love of fine food and his true passion, which is breeding orchids.
Before Midnight’s an ok one to start with, but you could also try some of the short stories (And Four To Go is a good mini-anthology) or try and catch some of the Tim Hutton/Maury Chaykin TV series that A&E did, which is very faithful to the book. If you can get them, Too Many Cooks and Some Buried Caesar are both excellent.
Stout wrote outside of temporal continuity, so not much changes in terms of circumstance from book to book – time advances, like fashions change and they get a TV and WWII happens and such – but Nero and Archie don’t age, and not much about their circle of acquaintances changes, so you can basically pick up any book and be up to speed pretty quickly.
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