The Doorbell Rang

⚖The case for it

Nero Wolfe, orchid-growing, beer-drinking genius who never leaves his brownstone, takes on the FBI itself. Stout's creation is among fiction's great characters; Archie Goodwin, his legman narrator, is equally brilliant. Stout represents the American Golden Age at its most pleasurable and formally inventive.

— the canon

✕The case against

Stout's plots were always the flimsiest part of the brownstone, and here the actual murder is an afterthought bolted to the FBI stunt. One Wolfe novel teaches you the shape of every other: orchids, beer, Archie's needling, the gathering in the office. Sublime formula is still formula, and this entry's puzzle would not fill a novella.

— the honest librarian