- Series
- | Authors
- | Book Release Calendar
- | Search |
- Genres
- | Newsletter
- Welcome to FictionDB, Guest
- | My Account
- | Help
A Nero Wolfe Mystery — by Rex Stout
Nero Wolfe Series in Order: 50 books
-
Fer-De-Lance
Book - 1
Rarely stirring from his luxurious brownstone, the fat (one-seventh of a ton), beer-drinking, orchid-fancying mastermind spins his webs of uncanny deduction--while his wry, tough sidekick Archie tends to the legwork (and the girl-watching). Wolfe's c...
-
The League of Frightened Men
Book - 2
Nero Wolfe is the superlative detective of gargantuan girth. An no this orchid-growing genius of deduction, with the help of his trusted assistant, Archie Goodwin, must discover why two embers of The Harvard Club suddenly died and why a third member ...
-
The Rubber Band
Book - 3
THE PLEDGE OF THE RUBBER BAND ... began in Silver City, Nevada, at the turn of the century. When the whole mess fell into Nerds lap, the sedentary detective and Archie Goodwin had to crack a mystery that stretched across four decades and five thousa...
-
The Red Box
Book - 4
The imperturbable orchid-growing genius is none other than Nero Wolfe. Together with his confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, he enters the seamy world of high fashion to solve a distasteful murder. One girl is dead, a victim of her sweet tooth. W...
-
Too Many Cooks
Book - 5
World--class cuisine, charming company... The secret ingredient is poison. As the great detective prepares to speak at a gathering of the world's great chefs, one is found indelicately murdered. When the target for killing shifts to himself, Wolfe...
-
Some Buried Caesar
Book - 6
An automobile breakdown strands Nero Wolfe and Archie in the middle of a private pasture--and a family feud over a prize bull. A restaurateur's plan to buy the stud and barbecue it as a publicity stunt may be in poor taste, but it isn't a crime...unt...
-
Over My Dead Body
Book - 7
When a Balkan beauty gets in trouble over some missing diamonds, whom else can she turn to but the world-famous Nero Wolfe? Especially since she claims to be Wolfe's long-lost daughter! The stakes are suddenly raised when a student at this woman's fe...
-
Where There's a Will
Book - 8
Why did the late multimillionaire Noel Hawthorne leave his sisters, April, May, and June, a peach, a pear, and an apple? Why did he will the bulk of his considerable estate to a woman who was most definitely not his wife? Now Nero Wolfe, able, astute...
-
Black Orchids
Book - 9
Nero Wolfe has left his comfortable brownstone for the promise of a remarkably rare black orchid at a flower show--but before Wolfe and his perennially hardy sidekick, Archie Goodwin, have a chance to stop and smell the roses, a diabolically daring m...
-
-
Not Quite Dead Enough
Book - 10
The army wants Nero Wolfe urgently, but he refuses their clarion call to duty. It takes Archie Goodwin to titillate Wolfe's taste for crime with two malevolent morsels: a corpse that refuses to rest in peace and a sinister "accident" involving nation...
-
The Silent Speaker
Book - 11
When a powerful government official, scheduled to speak to a group of millionaires, turns up dead, it is an event worthy of the notice of the great Nero Wolfe. Balancing on the edge of financial ruin, the orchid-loving detective grudgingly accepts th...
-
Too Many Women
Book - 12
Who murdered Waldo Wilmot Moore? Well, there were five hundred female employees at the Wall Street firm where poor Waldo had worked. There was also the beautiful lady stockholder who tried to bribe Archie. And the dark-haired lovely who simply couldn...
-
And Be a Villain
Book - 13
Madeline Fraser, radio talk show host extraordinaire, had a natural dread of dead air. So when one of her on air guests signed off at the mike after drinking a glass of a sponsor's beverage, it was a broadcaster's nightmare come true. Enter Nero Wolf...
-
The Second Confession
Book - 14
When a millionaire businessman hires Nero Wolfe to probe the background of his daughter's boyfriend, it seems like just another case of an overprotective father. But when a powerful gangland boss "counsels" the detective to drop the matter, Wolfe rea...
-
Trouble in Triplicate
Book - 15
A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained--and puzzled--millions of mys...
-
In the Best Families
Book - 16
The aging millionairess has a problem: where is her young playboy husband getting all his money? To help find the answer, Archie infiltrates a party at her palatial estate. But her late-night murder ruins the festive mood...and a letter bomb from a p...
-
Three Doors to Death
Book - 17
One by one they knock on the door of the incomparable Nero Wolfe, each with a case more perplexing than the one before. First comes the niece of a man who committed suicide by jumping naked into a geyser, only to return just in time to be murdered. T...
-
Curtains for Three
Book - 18
In these three baffling mysteries of motive and murder, even the great Nero Wolfe finds himself stumped. First there is the case of the two passionate lovebirds who want to make sure that neither is a cold-blooded killer. Then it's off to the races, ...
-
Murder by the Book
Book - 19
"It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore." -- The New York Times Book ReviewIntroduction by David HandlerIt wasn't Leonard Dykes's writing style that offended. But something in his unpublished tome seemed t...
-
-
Triple Jeopardy
Book - 20
The incredibly brilliant Nerd Wolfe is the orchid-growing gourmet whose sheer genius at deduction is without peer. Together with his confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, he must draw; upon all his enormous talent and versatility to solve three sep...
-
Prisoner's Base
Book - 21
When Priscilla Eads, heiress to cotton-towel millions, first pleads for Nero Wolfe's assistance, the portly detective decides to wash his hands of a case that has more than its share of dirty laundry. Just hours later Miss Eads and her maid are found...
-
The Golden Spiders
Book - 22
A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained--and puzzled--millions of mys...
-
Three Men Out
Book - 23
The legendary Nero Wolfe finds himself deep in foul territory in these three baffling cases of murder and mayhem. In the first, some sharp questions about a poisoning come to an abrupt end-as. in death by blunt instrument. Then Wolfe must decode the ...
-
The Black Mountain
Book - 24
When Marko Vukcic, one of Nero Wolfe's closest friends, is gunned down to cold blood, the great detective takes it personally, pledging to do everything in his considerable power to bring the killer to justice. But Wolfe's reckless vow draws him into...
-
Before Midnight
Book - 25
The scent of murder is in the air at the great Pour Amour perfume contest, and the incomparable Nero Wolfe is intent on sniffing out the killer. The foul deed is committed during the contest's final round. Only five riddles separate the contestants f...
-
Three Witnesses
Book - 26
One missing will, two million disputed dollars... Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwill get down to cases--three separate ones, in fact, that hinge on crucial testimony from a black Labrador retriever, a dead man and the great detective himself. Step ...
-
Might As Well Be Dead
Book - 27
Eleven years ago, wealthy Nebraska businessman James Herold gave his only son, Paul, a very raw deal. Now he wants Nero Wolfe to track Paul down so that he can make amends. But what if the young man doesn't want to be found...and what if he's the sam...
-
If Death Ever Slept // If Death Ever Sleeps
Book - 28
Murder lurks in the wings of the sprawling Fifth Avenue penthouse of multimillionaire Otis Jarrell, who has just retained the incomparable Nero Wolfe on a case of the utmost confidentiality. But even the master detective cannot prevent tragedy when i...
-
Three for the Chair
Book - 29
Follow the world's greatest detective on a trail of money, mayhem, and murder in three cases of capital crime. The trail of bodies begins with the death of a self-made millionaire, a fortune in uranium, and the perfect weapon ...which no longer exist...
-
-
Champagne for One
Book - 30
Faith Usher had a decidedly morbid personality. She talked about taking her life, and kept cyanide in her purse. So when she collapses and dies from a lethal champagne cocktail in the middle of a high society dinner party, everyone calls it suicide--...
-
And Four to Go
Book - 31
Embark on a year of murder and mystery. It begins at Christmas with a party and a poisoning, then blossoms into spring with sudden death at the Easter Parade. With a killer in the crowd, the Fourth of July is no picnic, and the calendar is overbooked...
-
Plot It Yourself
Book - 32
A poisoned drink, a misplaced paragraph ... a pretty young corpse. Hired to capture an ingenious plagiarizer, the great detective soon finds himself smack in the middle of a bloody murder mystery... a mystery that has the leading lights of New Yor...
-
Too Many Clients
Book - 33
The dead man had one too many lovers. Nero Wolfe's resourceful assistant Archie Goodwin finds that out when he stumbles into the room where the businessman has been murdered: a love nest lined with red satin and fleshy paintings. Besides the decor --...
-
Three at Wolfe's Door
Book - 34
Three murder cases place arrogant, gormandizing sleuth Nero Wolfe at an exclusive dinner party where arsenic is served, in a wandering cab with a dead lady driver, and at a rodeo championship....
-
The Final Deduction
Book - 35
When high-society kidnapping unexpectedly turns to very seamy murder, all concerned turn to the great detective, Nero Wolfe, for the missing piece in the puzzle.A missing typewriter, a mysterious ransom note -- and a beautiful corpse. Step into the u...
-
Homicide Trinity
Book - 37
It's a wily killer who dares to strike on Nero Wolfe's hallowed turf -- and leave a corpse strangled with Wolfe's own soup-stained tie. But no sooner does the gourmandizing sleuth clean up this first course of murder than he faces a gun-toting wife w...
-
The Mother Hunt
Book - 38
When an abandoned baby is left on her doorstep, the young socialite widow knows only too well the identity of the father: her deceased philanderer of a husband. But who is the mother? The case seems like child's play to Wolfe, until the first dead bo...
-
A Right to Die
Book - 39
She had everything: money, beauty, a devoted fiance...and then she became the victim of a crime in black and white. Susan Brooke was young, bright, attractive, financially independent, white--and murdered. All the clues point to her dapper, dauntl...
-
-
Trio for Blunt Instruments
Book - 40
TROUBLE COMES IN THREES If Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, would ever admit to an Achilles' heel -- which they wouldn't -- it would be a weakness for damsels in distress. In these three charming chillers the duo answer the call of helpless hero...
-
The Door Bell Rang
Book - 41
There's no one or nothing the great detective Nero Wolfe wouldn't take on if the price was right. That's something wealthy society widow Rachel Bruner is counting on when she writes him a check for a whopping hundred grand. But even Wolfe has a momen...
-
Death of a Doxy
Book - 42
A kept woman, two kinds of blackmail, a beautiful corpse ... Private eye Orrie Cather sometimes did legwork for Nero Wolfe--but now he's the poor sap in need of the great detective. The pretty young thing he dallied with had gotten herself inconve...
-
The Father Hunt
Book - 43
AMY WAS 22, BEAUTIFUL, CHARMING -- AND THE KEEPER OF A LITTLE BOX WITH MORE THAN A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS IN IT. IT WAS FROM HER FATHER, BUT SHE HAD NEVER SEEN HIM AND DIDN'T KNOW HIS NAME. SO SHE BUTTONHOLED ARCHIE TO FIND HIM, AND ARCHIE FAST...
-
Death of a Dude
Book - 44
A pregnant daughter, an angry father...a dead lover. The great detective travels to Montana, eats canned soup, makes his own bed and assists Archie on a very messy rifle-shot murder. Step into the unassuming Thirty-fifth Street brownstone, and ...
-
Please Pass the Guilt
Book - 45
A bomb blows up in the desk of a top TV executive. Was it intended for him or the man who opened the drawer? They each had enemies enough to die a dozen times over. Was it the jealous wife or the ambitious partner? The secretary who got passed around...
-
A Family Affair
Book - 46
Nero Wolfe's last recorded case! Wolfe never works without a well-heeled client and a sizable fee, but when a bomb rocks his brownstone, killing his favorite waiter from his favorite restaurant, the world's greatest gourmet takes it as a personal aff...
-
Death Times Three
Book - 47
Now, with the aid of the Stout estate and Stout's official biographer, John McAleer, Bantam Books is proud to publish for the first time in book form this newly discovered collection of three Nero Wolfe novellas. ASSAULT ON A BROWNSTONE, the never-be...
-
-
Five of a Kind
Includes the stories: The Rubber Band THE PLEDGE OF THE RUBBER BAND ... began in Silver City, Nevada, at the turn of the century. When the whole mess fell into Nerds lap, the sedentary detective and Archie Goodwin had to crack a mystery that str...
Series Premise
Nero Wolfe is a genius detective who refuses to leave his brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City. Weighing “one-seventh of a ton†(approximately 270–290 pounds depending on the book), Wolfe is a gourmand, orchid fancier, and intellectual who solves cases without ever visiting crime scenes. He relies entirely on Archie Goodwin—his legman, secretary, narrator, and indispensable partner—to gather evidence, interview witnesses, tail suspects, and bring information back to the brownstone. Wolfe then sits in his custom-built chair, drinks beer, arranges orchids in the rooftop plant rooms, and deduces the solution through pure reasoning. The typical structure is: - A client arrives with a problem (murder, theft, blackmail, disappearance). - Archie investigates in the field, often antagonizing police or suspects. - Wolfe orchestrates from his armchair, issuing precise instructions. - A dramatic gathering in Wolfe’s office brings all suspects together. - Wolfe reveals the solution in a lengthy, theatrical explanation, usually exposing the killer through inconsistencies Archie has collected. The mysteries are classic fair-play puzzles: readers have all the clues Wolfe has, and the joy lies in watching him assemble them. The cases often involve high society, business intrigue, literary circles, or political scandals, but the real drama comes from the interplay between Wolfe’s genius and Archie’s street-level energy.
Nero Wolfe Series Characters
Nero Wolfe: The genius detective—immense (1/7 ton), brilliant, eccentric, and immovable. He lives by routine: breakfast at 8:00, orchids from 9:00 to 11:00 and 4:00 to 6:00, beer throughout the day, and meals prepared by Fritz. He hates leaving home, despises small talk, and charges exorbitant fees. Yet he is deeply principled, refuses unjust cases, and possesses a quiet moral center.
- Archie Goodwin: Wolfe’s assistant, narrator, and indispensable legman. Late 20s/early 30s, handsome, quick-witted, and charming. He handles fieldwork, interviews, tailing, and the endless paperwork Wolfe refuses to touch. Archie is loyal to Wolfe but not afraid to challenge him; he narrates with humor, self-awareness, and a keen eye for human behavior.
- Fritz Brenner: Wolfe’s Swiss chef—quiet, devoted, and the creator of the brownstone’s legendary meals. He is part of the family and fiercely protective of Wolfe’s routine.
- Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, Orrie Cather: Wolfe’s freelance operatives—Saul is the best all-around investigator, Fred is reliable muscle, Orrie is handsome but unreliable.
- Inspector Lionel Cramer: NYPD homicide inspector—gruff, honest, and perpetually frustrated by Wolfe’s methods and success.
- Lon Cohen: New York Gazette reporter and Archie’s friend—provides information in exchange for scoops.
- Supporting/recurring: Various clients, suspects, and members of New York society who populate each case.
Setting of the Nero Wolfe Series
The primary setting is New York City in the mid-20th century (roughly 1930s–1970s), with the action almost always anchored in Nero Wolfe’s famous brownstone at 922 West 35th Street. The house is a character in itself: five stories of brownstone, a rooftop greenhouse for Wolfe’s 10,000 orchids, a massive office with a custom-built desk and chair, a kitchen run by the Swiss chef Fritz Brenner, and an atmosphere of ordered luxury amid the chaos of the city.
The rest of New York is vividly present: Manhattan offices, Harlem jazz clubs, Greenwich Village apartments, Wall Street boardrooms, Midtown hotels, and the streets where Archie walks, tails suspects, or gets into fights. Cases occasionally take the characters outside the city—to upstate New York farms, Connecticut estates, New Jersey suburbs, or even Montana ranches—but Wolfe himself almost never leaves the brownstone (a handful of exceptions are major plot points). The era feels timeless yet specific: no cell phones, no internet, but taxis, typewriters, pay phones, and the daily newspaper are ever-present. The world is mid-century America—sophisticated yet gritty, optimistic yet shadowed by war, depression, and Cold War paranoia.
Tone & Themes of the Nero Wolfe Series
The tone is witty, urbane, and quietly confident—Golden Age detective fiction with a distinctly American, hard-boiled edge. Stout’s prose is precise, elegant, and full of dry humor. Archie’s first-person narration is lively, sarcastic, and self-aware; he frequently mocks Wolfe’s eccentricities, comments on beautiful women, and delivers sharp one-liners about human folly. Wolfe himself speaks in measured, often pompous sentences, but his wit is devastating when he chooses to deploy it. The books are never grim or nihilistic. Even when dealing with murder, betrayal, or corruption, there is an underlying sense of order and rationality: Wolfe’s intellect always triumphs, and justice—though sometimes delayed—is served. The violence is minimal and off-stage; the real drama is intellectual and psychological. The tone is ultimately reassuring: in Wolfe’s brownstone, reason prevails, the guilty are exposed, and life continues with beer, orchids, and Fritz’s cooking. It is sophisticated comfort reading—smart, funny, and deeply satisfying.
Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series is a towering achievement in detective fiction that delivers some of the most satisfying, intellectually elegant mysteries ever written. Through the partnership of Nero Wolfe—the sedentary genius who never leaves his brownstone—and Archie Goodwin—the street-smart, wise-cracking narrator who does all the legwork—the books offer a perfect balance of armchair deduction and hard-boiled action. Set in a vividly realized mid-century New York, filled with period detail and unforgettable characters, the series combines razor-sharp plotting, sparkling dialogue, and profound humanity. Wolfe and Archie are among the greatest detective duos in literature: complementary opposites whose friendship is as compelling as any case they solve. The books are timeless—witty, humane, and deeply satisfying—proving that even in a world of chaos and murder, reason, loyalty, and a well-stocked pantry can still prevail. Few series reward rereading as richly as this one; the brownstone on West 35th Street remains open, the orchids are blooming, and Nero Wolfe is still waiting for the next client to walk through the door.
Books in this series fall into the following genres
Genres
Themes
People / Creatures
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Top Series in Private Investigator