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A hazing prank at Harvard left Paul Chapin disabled. Years later, two of the men responsible end up dead, and a series of poems promises continued retribution. Now the other men who hazed Paul are desperate for the protection of brilliant detective Nero Wolfe.

Is Paul Chapin exacting revenge on his former classmates, and can Nero Wolfe and his wise-cracking sidekick, Archie Goodwin, stop him before he kills again? Find out in Rex Stout’s The League of Frightened Men (1935).

Check out The Offical Nero Wolfe Society!
On X: @NeroWolfePack
Reach out to Ira: werowance@nerowolf.org

Review more books and media by Rex Stout & Ira Brad Matetsky in our amazon store.

Our special guest, Ira Brad Matetsky, joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin hosts Sarah and Carolyn to discuss The League of Frightened Men by Nero Wolfe. He has been the Werowance (President) of the Wolfe Pack, the international literary society for the Nero Wolfe stories by Rex Stout, since 2007.

Ira Matetsky has written a number of articles about Nero Wolfe and related topics and edited The Last Drive and Other Stories, a collection of some of Rex Stout’s earliest work, published by the Mysterious Press/Open Road in 2015.

He is also a Sherlockian and is invested as a member of the Baker Street Irregulars (“The Final Problem”) and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (“The Lawyer Whose Name Was Given in the Paper”).

By day he is a litigation partner at the law firm of Dorf Nelson & Zauderer LLP in New York City.

Rex Stout received the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1959. In 2000, Bouchercon nominated him as Best Mystery Writer of the Century and the Nero Wolfe books as Best Mystery Series of the Century. The Wolfe Pack is the international literary society devoted to Nero Wolfe. Every year on the first Saturday in December, the Wolfe Pack holds a Black Orchid Banquet and presents the Nero Award & the Black Orchid Novella Award for excellence in the mystery genre.

Food & Drink in Nero Wolfe Novels

Perhaps one of the primary characters. Fritz’s cooking is mentioned in every chapter, as is the enormity of Wolfe and his predilection to eating, tasting. Archie refers to himself as a swallower.

We’re even given a recipe: p 237 – “he had lined a casserole with butter, put in it six tablespoons of cream, three fresh eggs, four Lambert sausages, salt, pepper, paprika and chives, and conveyed it to the oven.” Sarah will be making it if she can figure out what a Lambert sausage is.

Archie drinks a pitcher of milk a night. He doesn’t necessarily abstain from alcohol, but he rarely drinks it, preferring milk. Several characters (Pitney Scott and Mike Ayers) are portrayed rather harshly for what appears to be alcoholism. Scott is definitely trying to stay sober. This is a huge departure from the constant drinking of Hammett’s hardboiled detectives. Wolfe constantly drinks beer. Another departure from hard drinking, but not remotely abstemious.

Has the social climate changed at this time? Or are these trends more related to the individual authors or characters?

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A hazing prank at Harvard left Paul Chapin disabled. Years later, two of the men responsible end up dead, and a series of poems promises continued retribution. Now the other men who hazed Paul are desperate for the protection of brilliant detective Nero Wolfe.

Is Paul Chapin exacting revenge on his former classmates, and can Nero Wolfe and his wise-cracking sidekick, Archie Goodwin, stop him before he kills again? Find out in Rex Stout’s The League of Frightened Men (1935).

Check out The Offical Nero Wolfe Society!
On X: @NeroWolfePack
Reach out to Ira: werowance@nerowolf.org

Review more books and media by Rex Stout & Ira Brad Matetsky in our amazon store.

Our special guest, Ira Brad Matetsky, joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin hosts Sarah and Carolyn to discuss The League of Frightened Men by Nero Wolfe. He has been the Werowance (President) of the Wolfe Pack, the international literary society for the Nero Wolfe stories by Rex Stout, since 2007.

Ira Matetsky has written a number of articles about Nero Wolfe and related topics and edited The Last Drive and Other Stories, a collection of some of Rex Stout’s earliest work, published by the Mysterious Press/Open Road in 2015.

He is also a Sherlockian and is invested as a member of the Baker Street Irregulars (“The Final Problem”) and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (“The Lawyer Whose Name Was Given in the Paper”).

By day he is a litigation partner at the law firm of Dorf Nelson & Zauderer LLP in New York City.

Rex Stout received the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1959. In 2000, Bouchercon nominated him as Best Mystery Writer of the Century and the Nero Wolfe books as Best Mystery Series of the Century. The Wolfe Pack is the international literary society devoted to Nero Wolfe. Every year on the first Saturday in December, the Wolfe Pack holds a Black Orchid Banquet and presents the Nero Award & the Black Orchid Novella Award for excellence in the mystery genre.

Nero Wolfe Character Types

The Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin of A Family Affair (46th and last book) are essentially the same as the characters we first meet in Fer-de-Lance.

The books have a Golden Age sense of order/puzzles and the hardboiled American school inspired by Prohibition and the Depression. Wolfe and Archie have great chemistry.

Nero Wolfe seems to be a return, an extreme return, to the brilliant armchair amateur. But he has his trusty employee, Archie Goodman, who at once seems a hardboiled detective and a studious secretary. Is Stout blending approaches to detective fiction?

Evelyn Hibbard describes herself as “hard-boiled.” Archie is also hardboiled. Hardboiled (the boiling of an egg) was first used by Mark Twain in 1886 to mean “emotionally hardened.”

Archie Goodwin

Part hardboiled detective and man of action, part studious, live-in secretary and orchid cataloger. He observes but doesn’t get involved with women. A swallower of food, drinker of milk. Intense loyalty and frequent annoyance with his employer, Wolfe. He takes detailed notes in shorthand for Wolfe. He acts as Wolfe’s eyes and ears on the outside. He doesn’t read books. Strong work ethic: “[I’m] too conscientious. I love to do a good job more than anything else I can think of.”

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Thriller author James McLaughlin joins Sarah and Carolyn to discuss his book Bearskin.

McLaughlin is the author of Bearskin, published by Ecco/HarperCollins in 2018 and winner of the 2019 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Bearskin has been featured, mentioned, and reviewed in The New York Times (4 Writers to Watch, Bears and Poets, New Books We Recommend, and Best Crime Fiction), The Washington Post, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and Goodreads.

He’s currently working on a sequel to Bearskin.

Check out all the book and other items inspired by the conversation here.

Check out Jim's website at jamesamclaughlin.com

Rice Moore is just beginning to think his troubles are behind him. He’s found a job protecting a remote forest preserve in Virginian Appalachia where his main responsibilities include tracking wildlife and refurbishing cabins. It’s hard work, and totally solitary—perfect to hide away from the Mexican drug cartels he betrayed back in Arizona. But when Rice finds the carcass of a bear killed on the grounds, the quiet solitude he’s so desperately sought is suddenly at risk.

More bears are killed on the preserve and Rice’s obsession with catching the poachers escalates, leading to hostile altercations with the locals and attention from both the law and Rice’s employers. Partnering with his predecessor, a scientist who hopes to continue her research on the preserve, Rice puts into motion a plan that could expose the poachers but risks revealing his own whereabouts to the dangerous people he was running from in the first place.

James McLaughlin expertly brings the beauty and danger of Appalachia to life. The result is an elemental, slow burn of a novel—one that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

James McLaughlin won the 15 Bytes Book Award for Fiction (Artists of Utah) and was a finalist for the 2019 Library of Virginia Literary Award in fiction, the 2019 Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the 2019 Barry Award for Best First Novel.

Bearskin was included in Amazon’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2018, Garden & Gun‘s Best Southern Books of 2018, and Southern Living’s Best Southern Books of 2018. It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a Publishers Weekly Summer Reads staff

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