Nero Wolfe: Bluster, Beer, and Brilliance

Mark Richardson — Classic detective fiction has occupied a lot of my time during this year of pandemic. I have always loved good detective fiction, and I have taken this opportunity to re-read many of my old favorites—Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Harry Kemelman, and the magnificent Rex Stout, creator of the reclusive, impatient, pompous, obese genius, Nero Wolfe and his eyes, ears, and … Continue reading Nero Wolfe: Bluster, Beer, and Brilliance

Baseball and Murder Mysteries

Mark Richardson — Mickey Rawlings is a baseball player. He’s also a sleuth. He does not solve murders because he has a yen to be a detective. Rather, he has murders thrust upon him–murders which neither the police nor anyone else seems to want solved. And that leaves Mickey to solve them. Rawlings is a major league utility infielder whose skills are good enough to … Continue reading Baseball and Murder Mysteries

The Hard Boiled Detectives

Mark Richardson — Edgar Allan Poe is generally regarded as the father of the detective fiction genre. In his classic stories, The Murders In the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter, Poe created the first mystery solving detective in literature, the inimitable C. Auguste Dupin. Poe was followed in short order by such unforgettable and still impressive mystery writers as … Continue reading The Hard Boiled Detectives