Just as Rex Stout became a writer late in life, I became a fan of his writing late in life. Though I was already a teenager by the time A Family Affair was published as Stout’s last Nero Wolfe novel, I didn’t discover the books until I was in my fifties.

I have no interest in writing the definitive treatise on Stout or Wolfe. You can find ten times as many words as Stout ever wrote written about his writings with even a superficial search.

What fascinates me, what draws me to Stout, is my belief that he would have recognized some of himself in me. … more … “Archie and Saul and Fritz and Fred and even Orrie: Nero Wolfe’s Family”