One of them is Laszio, who is despised by no less than three of the other chefs present. It takes place in the '30s in West Virginia, where the fifteen best chefs in the world (Les Quinze Maitres) have gathered for their annual meeting. (I am not joking about that last one) He's basically to America what Miss Marple and Poirot were to England, and just learning about the phenomenon was fascinating.Īs for the book itself, it didn't disappoint. As my professor put it: 'Nero Wolfe's fans are the detective fiction equivalent of Trekkies.' There are Nero Wolfe websites. Having spent the better part of my summer on a detective-novel binge, I'm still amazed that I had never heard of Rex Stout or his famous detective Nero Wolfe until this point. I do know that Rex Stout did not normally display extreme racism in his writing. Rex Stout may have been deliberately drawing attention to the unpleasant attitudes of the day (1938) and contrasting them with Wolfe's more enlightened attitude. Nor does Wolfe display the racist attitudes of some of the other characters. The slang is not used by Nero Wolfe, though Archie uses quite a bit. I have read reviews and critics which call this novel and Rex Stout racist because of its portrayal of black men and its use of slang and derogatory words. Perhaps for that reason, I particularly liked Too Many Cooks.' I must also reveal that greed and the general enjoyment of food is one of my main characteristics and the descriptions of the meals served and prepared by Nero Wolfe's cook have given me a lot of pleasure and a great wish to have occasionally tasted these suggestions myself. Archie is a splendid character to have invented and his first person remarks and descriptions are always most entertaining to read. 'I have enjoyed a great many of his books. However in some ways this novel is one of his most entertaining. It seems to me that Stout had yet to hit his stride and fully develop Nero Wolfe's potential. This is an early Nero Wolfe novel, the fifth which Rex Stout wrote. Wolfe and Archie find themselves embroiled in the investigation.

Of course murder intervenes and the entire event goes off the rails.

He wants a particular recipe from one of the chefs. That doesn't sound like enough incentive to get Wolfe to leave home but he has an ulterior motive. As much as Wolfe hates to leave home he accepts an invitation to give a speech to the fifteen chefs named the greatest in the world. An early Nero Wolfe novel which is also one of the best.

Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout