The Golden Spiders
Encyclopedia
The Golden Spiders is a Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created in 1934 by the American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin narrates the cases of the detective genius. Stout wrote 33 novels and 39 short stories from 1934 to 1974, with most of them set in New York City. Wolfe's...

 detective novel by Rex Stout
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...

. It was first published in 1953 by The Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...

.

Plot introduction

A youngster comes to Wolfe's office and tells Wolfe that he saw a woman driving a car, apparently being menaced by her passenger. The next day, the boy is murdered while washing car windows at a nearby intersection.

Plot summary

Pete Drossos, a twelve year old from the neighborhood, rings Wolfe's doorbell one evening and interrupts his after dinner coffee. Wolfe has just thrown a tantrum, occasioned by Fritz's choice of herbs to garnish the entree. Archie regards Wolfe's behavior as childish, and so to twit him, Archie admits Pete – who says, "I gotta case."

Turning Archie's prank against him, Wolfe invites Pete to tell his story. He observes that Archie, who had been about to leave to watch a billiards match, will now have to stay and take detailed notes concerning Pete's case.

Pete has quite a tale. It seems that he was working the wipe racket when a woman driver with a male passenger mouthed an appeal to him: "Help. Get a cop." Pete had the presence of mind to note the time and the car's tag. Later, Pete reflected that the car was a Caddy and the driver was wearing gold earrings, shaped like spiders. So there might be money involved, and he decided to enlist Wolfe's assistance.

Hearing all this, Wolfe tells Archie to phone the police, give them the tag number, and suggest a routine check. After Archie phones the precinct, Wolfe lectures Pete at length on the attributes of a successful detective, among which are a robust ego and integrity in the matter of fees. The conference ends when Pete has to return home.

The next evening, Sergeant Purley Stebbins appears on the stoop. Admitted to the office, Stebbins wants to know why Archie reported a tag number the night before. Archie wants to know why Stebbins wants to know. Stebbins reveals that a boy named Peter Drossos was struck and killed, two hours earlier, by a Cadillac with that tag number.

After Archie reviews Pete's story for Stebbins, Pete's mother rings the doorbell. In the ambulance just prior to his death, Pete asked his mother to give Wolfe the $4.30 he has saved. Embarrassed to keep the money, Wolfe tells Archie to donate it to charity, but Archie suggests that they use it to buy an ad in the Times seeking information about a woman driving a Cadillac and wearing spider earrings.

The ad gets two responses. First Inspector Cramer arrives, wanting to know what they're up to. Archie explains, and Cramer then wants to know if they've ever heard of Matthew Birch: there is evidence to indicate that Birch, an agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was also struck and killed by the Cadillac that killed Pete.

The other response is from a woman named Laura Fromm, a young and wealthy widow. She comes to the brownstone wearing gold earrings shaped like spiders, and wants information about Pete, but she won't say why. She retains Wolfe to provide help and advice, but first she wants to do some investigating herself. Wolfe satisfies himself that she is not the woman who asked Pete to get a cop, accepts her retainer, and warns her to beware – two people have already been murdered.

Mrs. Fromm apparently ignores Wolfe's advice, for the next day Wolfe and Archie learn that her body has been found, run over by car. They soon hear from a lawyer named Dennis Horan, counsel for Mrs. Fromm's favorite charity, Assadip. He wants to know about the check that Mrs. Fromm gave Wolfe as a retainer. He starts to warn Wolfe that outstanding checks written by a deceased person do not clear the issuing bank, but Wolfe informs Horan that the check has already been certified, and therefore will clear. Horan wants to know how Wolfe can justify keeping the retainer. Wolfe responds that Horan is not his mentor in propriety and ethics, but that he intends to earn it.

Archie heads for the Gazette to get information on Mrs. Fromm's death and on her associates. He learns that a few hours after meeting with Wolfe, she had attended a dinner party at the Horan apartment with several friends and associates, and after she left the party she was not seen until the discovery of her body. Seeking more information about Mrs. Fromm's activities after she left Wolfe's office, Archie scams his way, dressed as a mortician, into the Fromm household to question Jean Estey, Mrs. Fromm's personal secretary. He learns only that Mrs. Fromm had done nothing out of the ordinary, merely dictating some letters before dressing for the dinner party.

Wolfe gathers Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather and Fred Durkin to assist in his investigation. It's possible that there is a connection between Mrs. Fromm's death and Assadip, so Saul will pose as a refugee seeking Assadip's assistance, to see if anything unexpected results. Orrie will try to trace the spider earrings worn by the woman Pete saw in the car, and subsequently by Mrs. Fromm. Fred will explore Wolfe's conjecture that Matthew Birch was the passenger Pete saw in the Cadillac.

As the 'teers leave the brownstone, two lawyers arrive: Dennis Horan, counsel for Assadip, and James Albert Maddox, personal counsel for Mrs. Fromm — they are at odds over which of them has standing to represent Mrs. Fromm's interests. Maddox wants Wolfe to disgorge the $10,000 retainer that Mrs. Fromm paid him. Maddox implies that he will not pursue the funds if Wolfe will tell him the substance of his conversation with Mrs. Fromm. Wolfe refuses, and Maddox storms out, threatening to replevy the money. With Horan still present, Wolfe telephones the police, reports Maddox's behavior, hints that Maddox tried to bribe him, and asks that the information be given to Inspector Cramer. Horan nearly accuses Wolfe of slander, and then also leaves.

A couple of days later, Saul, Orrie and Fred each report progress. Orrie has tracked down the owner of a jewelry store where the spider earrings were once on display. Saul, after successfully posing at Assadip as a displaced person, has been visited by a man who demands money from him; Saul is now following the extortionist. And Fred has made contact with someone who knew Birch, but it sounds like he's in trouble. Archie sends Orrie to help Saul, and then goes to back Fred up.

When Archie catches up with Fred, he finds him in the basement of a public garage, relieved of his gun, and tied to a chair. A couple of goons, Egan and Ervin, are getting ready to torture him for information. In a spate of violence that is very rare in the Wolfe series, Archie shoots a gun out of Egan's hand, kicks Ervin in the stomach and slams Egan into a wall.

With the goons disabled, Archie unties Fred and goes back up to the garage, where he encounters Saul and Orrie. It turns out that it was Egan who tried to extort money from Saul, and Saul and Orrie have followed him to the garage. It's apparent that there's a blackmail operation going on: Egan carries a notebook filled with hundreds of names, including Leopold Heim, the alias that Saul used at Assadip. It also looks like Birch had something to do with the scheme, and Archie wants more information from Egan.

The book's plot continues with a scene even more rare in the series than the gun play: Archie, with help from Saul and Fred, proceeds to torture Egan. Egan's legs are twisted around one another and put under enough stress to make his face go gray. Although it is generally conceded that torture does not elicit dependable information, Archie believes what he hears: that Birch ran the blackmailing racket, that Egan saw Birch with a woman in a Cadillac on the same day that Pete wiped its windshield, and that Egan gets his leads via the phone, from a woman who identifies herself with the catchphrase, "Said a spider to a fly."

Then Horan unexpectedly shows up at the garage. Although he claims that Mrs. Fromm, before her murder, had asked him to investigate the activities there, it is clear that Horan has been a participant in the blackmail operation and showed up to help Egan. All involved – Archie, the 'teers, Egan, Ervin and Horan – adjourn to the brownstone for the remainder of the night, to await Cramer's arrival the next morning.

Egan is sewn up tight, for his assault on Fred, his attempt to blackmail Saul, and for the notebook with the names of blackmail victims in his possession. To avoid being implicated in Mrs. Fromm's death, he gives up Horan, who used his association with Assadip to obtain the names of recent immigrants, vulnerable people who would be easy to blackmail. Wolfe maneuvers Horan and Egan – with the assistance of the proprietor of a store in Newark – into identifying the other participant in the blackmail ring, the murderer of Pete Drossos, Matthew Birch and Laura Fromm.

Cast of characters

  • Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
  • Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories
  • Fritz Brenner — Wolfe's master chef
  • Pete Drossos — A 12-year-old who lives in Wolfe's neighborhood
  • Anthea Drossos — Pete's mother
  • Mrs. Damon (Laura) Fromm — Socialite and philanthropist, major supporter of the Association for the Aid of Displaced Persons (Assadip)
  • Jean Estey — Mrs. Fromm's personal secretary
  • Paul Kuffner — Public-relations consultant for Assadip and for Mrs. Fromm personally
  • Angela Wright — Executive Secretary of Assadip
  • Dennis Horan — General counsel for Assadip
  • Claire Horan — His wife
  • Vincent Lipscomb — Editor and publisher of the periodical Modern Thoughts, and friend of Laura Fromm
  • James Albert Maddox — Personal counsel for Laura Fromm and executor of her estate
  • Matthew Birch — Of the Immigration and Naturalization Service
  • Lawrence (Lips) Egan — Organized crime figure
  • Mortimer Ervin — Local thug
  • Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather — Operatives employed by Wolfe
  • Lon Cohen — Of the Gazette
  • Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Purley Stebbins – Representing Manhattan Homicide

The unfamiliar word

In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is at least one unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. The Golden Spiders contains one, spoken not by
Wolfe but by attorney Maddox, and is the sort of legal term that Stout tended to avoid:
  • Replevy. Chapter 8.

Reviews and commentary

  • Anthony Boucher
    Anthony Boucher
    Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...

    , The New York Times Book Review
    The New York Times Book Review
    The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...

    (November 15, 1953) — A highly professional and thoroughly satisfactory mystery.
  • James Sandoe, New York Herald Tribune
    New York Herald Tribune
    The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...

    (November 8, 1953) — Mr. Stout has fancied his case freshly, heard in acutely and if, after all this, he resolves it a little dully, there is to the last the pleasant acidity of Archie.
  • Saturday Review of Literature (November 21, 1953) — Nero Wolfe, armchair eye, solves three-ply killing while NY cops grind teeth. Archie Goodwin, aide, busy boy in this baffler; usual smooth job.

The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery (A&E Network)

The A&E Network
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...

 original movie The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery
The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery
The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a made-for-television film based on the 1953 novel by Rex Stout. Set in 1950s Manhattan, the A&E Network production stars Maury Chaykin as the heavyweight detective genius Nero Wolfe, and Timothy Hutton as Wolfe's assistant, Archie Goodwin, narrator of...

first aired March 5, 2000. The Jaffe/Braunstein Films production starred Maury Chaykin
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin was an American-born Canadian actor. Best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, he was also known for his work as a character actor in many films and on television programs.-Personal life:...

 as Nero Wolfe, and Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...

 as Archie Goodwin. Veteran screenwriter Paul Monash
Paul Monash
-Life and career:Paul Monash was born in Harlem, New York, in 1917, and grew up in The Bronx. His mother, Rhoda Melrose, acted in silent films. Monash earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a master's degree in education from Columbia University...

 adapted the novel, and Bill Duke
Bill Duke
William Henry "Bill" Duke, Jr. is an American actor and film director with over 30 years of experience. Known for his physically imposing frame, Duke's work frequently dwells within the action/crime and drama genres but also includes comedy.-Early life:Duke was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, the...

 directed.

A&E initially planned that The Golden Spiders would be the first in a series of two-hour mystery movies featuring Nero Wolfe. The high ratings (3.2 million households) garnered by the film, along with the critical praise accorded Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin, prompted A&E to order a weekly one-hour drama series — A Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's classic series of detective stories that aired for two seasons on the A&E Network. Set in New York City in the early 1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin...

— into production.

Other members of the principal cast of The Golden Spiders who would continue in the A&E series A Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's classic series of detective stories that aired for two seasons on the A&E Network. Set in New York City in the early 1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin...

include Bill Smitrovich
Bill Smitrovich
-Personal life:Bill Smitrovich was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Anna and Stanley William Zmitrowicz, a tool and die maker. Bill is a graduate of the University of Bridgeport and holds an MFA from Smith College . He is married to Shaw Purnell from Pittsburgh, PA...

 (Inspector Cramer), Colin Fox
Colin Fox (actor)
Colin Fox is a Canadian actor. His acting credits include playing Jean Paul Desmond and Jacques Eloi Des Mondes in Strange Paradise , as well as voice work in various animated series, and in other roles in film, television and on the stage...

 (Fritz Brenner), Fulvio Cecere
Fulvio Cecere
-Early life:Born to Italian parents, he attended Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, but after one year he realized that acting, not law, was his true calling. He took acting classes at UCLA and starred in a wide array of television and feature film parts over the next few years...

 (Fred Durkin), R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins) and Trent McMullen
Trent McMullen
Trent McMullen is a Canadian actor known for his portrayal of freelance detective Orrie Cather in the A&E TV original series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery , and the series pilot, The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery . In 2010 McMullen starred in Ed Gass-Donnelly's second feature film Small Town Murder...

 (Orrie Cather). Saul Rubinek
Saul Rubinek
Saul Rubinek is a Canadian actor, director, producer and playwright, known for his work in TV, film and the stage.-Early life:...

, who would take the role of Lon Cohen in the series, was cast as Saul Panzer in the pilot.

Nero Wolfe (Paramount Television)

The Golden Spiders was loosely adapted as the premiere episode of Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe (1981 TV series)
Nero Wolfe is a television series based on the characters in Rex Stout's classic series of detective stories that aired January 16 – August 25, 1981, on NBC. William Conrad fills the role of the detective genius Nero Wolfe, and Lee Horsley is his assistant Archie Goodwin...

(1981), an NBC TV series starring William Conrad
William Conrad
William Conrad was an American actor, producer and director whose career spanned five decades in radio, film and television....

 as Nero Wolfe and Lee Horsley
Lee Horsley
Lee Arthur Horsley is an American film, television, and theater actor known for starring roles in the television series, Nero Wolfe , Matt Houston , and Paradise . He starred in the 1982 cult film, The Sword and the Sorcerer, and recorded the audiobook edition of Lonesome Dove...

 as Archie Goodwin. Other members of the regular cast include George Voskovec
Jirí Voskovec
Jiří Voskovec was a Czech-American actor, playwright, dramatist, director, translator, and poet...

 (Fritz Brenner), Robert Coote
Robert Coote
Robert Coote was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.-Biography:Coote was educated at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex...

 (Theodore Horstmann), George Wyner
George Wyner
George Wyner is an American film and television actor. He is probably best known for his role as ADA Bernstein on the series Hill Street Blues. Wyner graduated from Syracuse University in 1968 as a drama major, and was an in-demand character actor by the early 1970s. To date, Wyner has made guest...

 (Saul Panzer) and Allan Miller
Allan Miller
Allan Miller is an American actor, best known for the role of Harland Richards in Santa Barbara.Miller was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Anna and Benedict Miller....

 (Inspector Cramer). Guest stars in the series debut include Carlene Watkins (Jean Estey), Penelope Windust
Penelope Windust
Penelope Windust is an American actress who starred on television, and in a few movies. She studied drama at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Tech just before its merger into Carnegie Mellon University in 1967...

 (Laura Fromm), Katherine Justice
Katherine Justice
Katherine Justice is an American actress with several television credits to her name.-Selected credits:*Separate Ways*The Way West *5 Card Stud*Limbo *Columbo*The Big Valley...

 (Angela Bell [Wright]), David Hollander (Pete Drossos) and Liam Sullivan (Paul Kessler [Kuffner]). Directed by Michael O'Herlihy
Michael O'Herlihy
Michael O'Herlihy was an Irish television producer and director who directed shows like Gunsmoke , Maverick , Star Trek , Hawaii Five-O , M*A*S*H and The A-Team . Born in Dublin, Ireland, O'Herlihy was the younger brother of actor Dan O'Herlihy...

 from a teleplay by Wallace Ware (David Karp), "The Golden Spiders" aired January 16, 1981.

Publication history

  • 1953, New York: Viking, October 26, 1953, hardcover
In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.-Biography:...

 describes the first edition
Edition (book)
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...

 of The Golden Spiders: "Decorative gray boards, gray cloth spine with yellow lettering. Issued in a black, white and yellow dust wrapper."
In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of The Golden Spiders had a value of between $200 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.
  • 1953, Toronto: Macmillan, 1953, hardcover
  • 1954, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild
    Book of the Month Club
    The Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...

    ), January 1954, hardcover
The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:
  • The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).
  • Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.
  • Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).
    • 1954, London: Collins Crime Club
      Collins Crime Club
      The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...

      , May 10, 1954, hardcover
    • 1955, New York: Bantam, November 1955, paperback
    • 1964, London: Fontana #964, 1964, paperback. Second printing, February 1970; third printing, July 1978; fourth printing, September 1981 (#6469)
    • 1995, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 0-553-27780-4 June 1, 1995, paperback
    • 1995, Auburn, California: Audio Partners ISBN 1-57270-038-6 1995, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
    • 2008, New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group (with Some Buried Caesar
      Some Buried Caesar
      Some Buried Caesar is the sixth Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine , under the title "The Red Bull." It was first published in book form by Farrar & Rinehart in 1939...

      ) ISBN 0-553-38567-4 September 30, 2008, trade paperback
    • 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75597-1 June 2, 2010, e-book
      E-book
      An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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