“…we are all vainer of our luck than of our merits…”

– Nero Wolfe.

Still breaking in my Sony Reader. Sure it isn’t as hip as the Kindle — and doesn’t have wireless — but it does what I want it to do very well. I’m on my third Rex Stout Nero Wolfe novel in the canon, chronologically, The Rubber Band.

Stout came out on of the gate roaring with the first novel Fer-de-lance. All of the Wolfian trappings were in place: the beer, the brownstone, his schedule, Fritz, Theordore, Saul, etc. Archie did the leg work while Wolfe sat back, grumbled and occasionally “relapsed.” All these touches carried the novel through what was otherwise are fairly lame, plodding plot. It was also the longest Wolfe novel.

It lacked the quick action and gotcha moments of later Its like watching a pilot for a familiar television show. Sure, Spock’s there on the Enterprise, but who the heck is Capt. Pike? Hrmm, that’s a bad analogy. All the parts are there, but it just feels slightly off.

The League of Frightened Men was better, but suffered from having too large a cast (the titular league, obviously). League was notable for getting the pattern down — Wolfe’s in-office interrogations are always as entertaining as Goodwin’s sleuthing — and for establishing the bond between Wolfe and Goodwin. They fight like an old married couple, yet they firmly know the bounds between employer and employee. Heck, Wolfe knowingly gets in a car with an unhinged woman to save Goodwin (while Goodwin bawls his eyes out thinking his lapse in judgement sent Wolfe to his doom).

The Rubber Band has everything, right down to the exasperatingly complicated case that only Wolfe can tease out. So far, in the series, its the first perfect Wolfe novel. And there are many more.