The League of Frightened Men with Ira Brad Matetsky, part 2!

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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).
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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 re

Carolyn Daughters
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