Greetings, Steemians and Steemettes!

Ah, where do I start today. This day was good in all the right ways and terrible in all the wrong ways. I woke up extra early so that I could find some time to look through the steem mines for interesting posts to read and found that steemit was actually down for a while. Good grief, that didn't go well.

Luckily, the day became much better afterwards and, at times, even entertaining. And now I am here, finding that Steemit is working again and I am able to write another book related post. Just for you. As is the case quite often, I read this book in German and translate freely on the go.

50 Greyshades of Rodin

What happened to Sergej Lukianenko?

I still have a lot of books coming from this famous author of mine. For the moment, I wanted to give you and me a small rest though. For one because rushing through these things can have a bad effect on enjoyment. But also because I still have a couple books lying around from the time I went to the book case. In case you missed it, you can read up on that particular topic here. It is one of my favorite posts of mine, so I highly suggest you giving it a look.

This is the book I am actually going to talk about today. I picked it from the bookcase without knowing what it is all about simply because I loved how the cover looked. Yeah, yeah, I know, never judge a book by its cover. Gimme a break, I reserved my judgement and gave the book time. There are actually two novels in this book, but I will only talk about the first one today. It is a criminal novel written by a certain Rex Stout It is the 22. entry in a series of criminal novels based on characters I will tell you more about shortly.

Took a screenshot of a picture made and used by me and a friend last week or so.

Don't steal it or I will come and hunt you!

The Golden Spider

This book is about as old and old fashioned as it looks. For the first couple pages, there were no clear date giving me a clear idea on the time this story plays in. A quick google search told me that the story was published in 1953. I'd say that the chances of this story being older than my average viewer are quite high, wouldn't you agree?

The story gives off a strong feeling of an early Sherlock Holmes Story. There is a detective who is being described as being an eccentric genius. The story itself is told from the view of one of his underlings.

The main character is called Nero Wolfe and is the owner of an detective agency in Manhattan. There are a couple similarities between him and Sherlock Holmes but also some stark differences. Sherlock Holmes usually is described as being slim and a good sportsman and combatant. Wolfe is an overweight man who never ever leaves the house as it seems. Him and Holmes are at pretty much equal standing when it comes to other eccentricities though. Wolfe is a man who follows certain routines almost religiously. Loving to tend for orchidaceaes, he spends four hours a day doing just that and won't allow anyone or anything to take away his focus from this task.

Similar rules apply to eating and table manners. A man who stays true to his own principles, I can respect that.

While Sherlock Holmes is usually depicted as a man of action being out there in the field himself, Nero isn't. All of his detective work is based on his thought processes which are based on the peoples observations who are working for him. A different kind of genius compared to Sherlock Holmes, but genius all the same. Of course, Sherlock Holmes tends to do the same every now and then, using his friend Dr. Watson as his eyes and ears quite often, most famously in the story about the Hound of the Baskervilles, which I will talk about one day as well.

The story is narrated by Archie Goodwin. He works as a detective for Nero Wolfes agency. Similarly to Dr. Watson, the narration is done in a way that makes it clear that he writes the story for others to read. Unlike Watson, he is no doctor nor a veteran of any sorts.

So who died?

There is no criminal novel without a crime. There probably is but I expect these to be exceedingly rare. There is a crime in this novel. Several, actually. It all starts with a boy who makes a living scrubbing off dirt from front windows off cars waiting at a traffic light. Doing his work, he noticed that one of the drivers he wanted to "serve" was a woman threatened by the man next to her. Not being sure about it, he assumed that the man held a pistol aimed at her.

Nero Wolfe is somewhat well known for his genius detective work as well as not being one who sucks up to the police, so the boy pays him a visit. Not necessarily because he wants to see justice served. He smells a good opportunity to make some coin. He tells Wolfe and Archie all about what he saw, including the woman wearing golden earings in the form of spiders. Found the source for our title, quite quickly so.

Shortly after, the events seem to take a turn for the bizarre. On the very next day, the boy has been killed by what seemed to be a car accident. The car that was involved in the accident is reveiled as a car being involved in another hit and run murder. To make things even more complicated, a woman shows up at Wolfes office, claiming to be the woman from the boys story which doesn't add up. While she does wear the golden earrings, her face lacks a certain detail that the boy was very clear about.

She wanted to find the boy for reasons unknown and tried to make a fool out of our two main detectives, but of course they see through the charade. The woman turns out to be a certain Mrs Laura Fromm, which is known for running supportive charitable organizations focused on helping immigrants and refugees. How very nice of her.

She dies too.

Clearly, her death ends up being a bit more interesting for the public and her talking to Wolfe becomes a topic of interest as well.

Let's start the detectiving.

All these complications and some others that involve money and payment make Nero Wolfe and his agency invest time and effort into working on this peculiar case. The clues they have are illusive, so they have to grasp at some very thin straws while having to resort to wit in order to make new straws appear in front of them.

Nero Wolfe basically acts as a conductor of sorts. He tells everyone working for him, four detectives in total, what they should do, including Archie. Some of these tasks ended up paying off, some better, others not so much.

Whether the murderer will be found or not I won't tell you. I will tell you how I am liking the book though!

Old but gold

Old books like these have a certain charme to them. Being a German born in 1990, reading about a city like Manhattan I have never seen in a time I will never be able to experience is amazing. Being able to read a book that sports some ways of old German spelling and ways of speaking/talking just adds to that in a weird way. A way that I can appreciate.

It was the same with Sherlock Holmes Stories for me, which are set over 100 years in the past in London which I have also haven't visited yet. Or the many books of Sergej Lukianenko which are set in Russia for the most part. Books are amazing when it comes to opening up windows to different times and places and this novel is no exception to that.

When I saw a criminal novel being called "The Golden Spiders", I was actually afraid of it being swallow, but that ended up being pointless. The novel develops more and more layers over time which are easy enough to follow and comprehend but tricky enough to make you feel respect for the characters. Both the employed detectives like Archie being out there in the field as well as Nero Wolfe who just processes everything given to him are charming personalities in their own right.

I made a previous comparison to Sherlock Holmes Stories. While I am not usually a fan of stories sharing too many similarities with one another, it somehow works for me here. Probably because the differences still keep the thing interesting.

If you enjoy experiencing a different plays in an older time like I do, give this novel a try. It's old and may be hard to find, but if you stumble over it somewhere, think about me fondly and grab it.

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