Some Buried Caesar (Nero Wolfe)

With this edition, Rex Stout had trimmed the redneck excess of Archie into the wise cracking, but substantive, Archie of the series. The reckless pop-off of the last three or so editions represent the initial outline needing to be honed. It had by this one, and it is appreciated. Enter the future main female distraction for Archie, who also seemed to undergo some taming as it goes along. People do grow and evolve. The Wolfe of this book had his sangfroid firmly in place, also a welcome establishment. Therefore, this is a pivotal edition and not just a bunch of bull ...

This is a great example of why this series is so enjoyable. Nero Wolfe proven right about automobiles, Wolfe trapped in a pasture by a bull, (Threatened by food, how appropriate.) Archie meets the one woman who sticks around (Lily Rowan) and a mystery that only gets solved with one of Wolfe's outrageous, but plausible (well, almost plausible) schemes. All the usual pleasures are just a bit better in this one, Archie gets arrested (as per usual) but instead of just suffering comically, he decides to organize the inmates. The banter between Goodwin and Rowan is another highlight (You'll see why Stout kept her around) and the twists and turns all have purpose. This one is one of the true classics of the series.

And it's not Hickory Caesar Grindon, the bull, either. This early Wolfe introduces Archie to his lifelong companion Lily Rowan. Lily sticks with Archie (God knows why) for the rest of the series, which means from 1939 to 1975. Some would say that Archie should be ashamed that he never makes an honest woman of Lily - I mean, isn't 36 years long enough? But that shows that they've not understood Lily - or Archie, for that matter. Lily is a classic proto-feminist. She is independent and wilful. SHe thinks and acts for herself. Marriage, as she would define it, poses unacceptable terms to her: having to conform her actions to the expectations of someone else. A great pleasure was seeing Kari Matchett play Lily in the much-lamented A & E series on Nero Wolfe. She was perfect: beautiful, self assured, charming and very much her own woman. Oh, the story: a prize bull is killed and so is another person associated therewith...Wolfe, already grossly inconvenienced and in a highly uncomfortable place, must unravel this to assure that Archie does not languish in a provincial prison. And, of course, a relationship begins which lasts a lifetime. The language and the characters in this story are irresistable, and Michael Prichard does his usual, wonderful job in capturing the spirit of Rex Stout's writing. It's a story that stands up to multiple listenings. Enjoy!

Tom Pratt, the nouveau riche owner of a chain of cheap eateries, buys a champion bull for $45,000.00 and announces his intention to barbecue it for 100 hand-picked guests. The Guernsey League is scandalized and tries to buy the bull back, but Pratt is obdurate. Nero Wolfe and his confidential assistant Archie Goodwin, on their way to an orchid show, crash (literally) the party in time to witness an idiotic bet made between Pratt and Clyde Osgood, the eldest son of Pratt's longtime rival. Soon thereafter, Archie is set to guard the bull against mischief. The bull isn't harmed under Archie's watchful eye, but he becomes distracted by the beautiful Lily Rowan and the next thing he knows, he finds the bull, with bloody horns, worrying Clyde Osgood's gored-to-death body. Wolfe gets hired to investigate the death, anthrax breaks out, a guest of Osgood's gets pitchforked, Archie gets arrested on suspicion of murder, and Wolfe (who solved the murder before anyone else knew it was a murder) slothfully allows all his evidence to go up in smoke. Funny and fast-paced, this story is the closest thing to a fair-play mystery that I have ever read in the Nero Wolfe corpus. If you grew up on a farm as I did, you stand a fair chance of figuring out who done it and how done it before Wolfe wins first place at the orchid show and eats his last fricassee at the Methodist women's food concession. The real trick in this one is how to prove it. Wolfe shakes off his indolence, springs Archie from jail, and engineers an elaborate caper designed to bring the killer to justice.

Rex Stout's sixth Nero Wolfe novel "Some Buried Caesar" is considered by many fans and critics to be the first great offering in the series. Wolfe, on his way to an orchid competition in upstate New York, takes an unexpected stop when Archie crashes the car in the middle of nowhere. While stranded, Wolfe and Archie encounter a prize-winning bull worth $45,000, a wise-cracking female named Lily Rowan, and of course, murder. Like the previous Wolfe outing "Too Many Cooks," Stout places the heavyset detective out of his element, and the results are wildly entertaining. Among the highlights: Wolfe drinking warm beer (Horrors!), Archie in jail for the first time, and many unsavory characters. With this novel, Stout really has a good grip on his characters and how they behave. Great fun!

In this novel Wolfe finds himself in quite a different world than his familiar brownstone. The portly detective who never leaves home finds himself stranded far from home -- a bit like the situation in Too Many Cooks.Characterization seems to shine in this early Wolfe novel. Archie does indeed meet Lily Rowan for the first time, as another reviewer points out. The repartee between these two is delightful, and provides an interesting love interest. Wolfe -- perhaps destabilized by being "stuck" in an unfamiliar setting -- is at his most autocratic, eccentric, and unpredictable. This very early Wolfe novel, first published in 1938, has some of the freshness of other early Wolfe novels. It was written when the character of Wolfe was still rather new to Rex Stout. It centers around a most peculiar crime. I'll avoid describing that to keep the reading experience fresh for the reader. Suffice to say, it is very difficult through the first third of this novel to convince the District Attorney that a crime has even been committed! Given the excellence of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels, I'm only surprised that so few are currently in print. This book-- if it can be obtained-- is a good one to put on your permanent shelves.