A million years ago, when I was a lowly doctoral student, my dissertation advisor suggested I include a chapter comparing fictional detective work with actual detective work. I was reluctant to do that because, having been an actual private detective specializing in criminal defense work, I found detective fiction to be profoundly stupid. But a ‘suggestion’ from your dissertation advisor is pretty damned close to an order.

Her suggestion came with a list of authors and titles she thought I might find worthwhile. Somewhere near the middle of the list was this: Any Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout. Nero Wolfe, she told me, was an unorthodox detective–an obese, beer-drinking, gourmand genius who grows orchids, has a particular passion for the color yellow, and solves murders without ever leaving his house. I found this horrifying. I was supposed to somehow compare that to actual detective work? That would be like comparing a Star Trek transporter operator to a railroad engineer.

But I went to the university library like a good doctoral student, and asked the librarian to give me a random Nero Wolfe novel. And I read it. And I loved it.

Don’t get me wrong–it was as ridiculous as it sounds. Nero Wolfe was completely absurd. But his assistant, Archie Goodwin, was not. Well, that’s not true; he was also ridiculous. But unlike all the other detective novels I was forced to read, Archie Goodwin had a proper private detective’s attitude. Because Wolfe never leaves his house, he sends Archie out to gather information “guided by your intelligence and experience.” That’s pretty much how criminal defense investigation is done.

What made Archie Goodwin interesting and, to some extent, believable, was his attitude. He’s generally light-hearted and enjoys meeting people and talking to them; he undertakes each aspect of an investigation as if it’s an entertaining challenge. That makes him creative and improvisational, which are qualities you find in the best investigators. But below the surface, Archie is always focused on doing the job, getting the information needed to resolve the case. Getting results is the only real measure of PI work. The job always comes first.

What really sold me on the character was one particular scene. Archie interviews a woman at her home. Her husband has recently died (as I recall, his death is unrelated to the crime at the center of the story). but out of habit she continues cooking his breakfast and setting a place for him at the table. His hat still hangs on the hatrack near the door. Archie realizes she’s stuck, so he sits at her husband’s place at the table, eats his breakfast, then puts the man’s hat on his head when he leave. Which is enough to shock her out of that stage of her grief. (I may have the details wrong; it’s been a long time since I read it…and I’ll come back to that.)

That scene hit me hard because I had a similar encounter as a PI. I was interviewing a woman who’d had the bad luck to witness a crime. Her teen-aged son had recently died. His skateboard was still leaning against a wall in the kitchen. She couldn’t bring herself to move it. After the interview, as I was leaving, I told her I knew a kid who couldn’t afford a good skateboard (which was a total lie) and offered to buy it from her. She cried and gave it to me, glad that the skateboard would be used.

Why am I telling you all this? Because about 18 months ago, somewhat in response to how awful everything is right now, I decided to find that Nero Wolfe novel and read it again. The problem was I didn’t remember the title. An even bigger problem was that between 1934 and 1975, Rex Stout wrote more than forty novels and short story collections featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

So I bought a Nero Wolfe novel at random and read it. It wasn’t the one I was looking for. So I bought another. Then another. And another.

They’re all basically the same novel. The characters never change or develop. They remain the same age, though time moves on. Their daily lives are unchanging. The cases are all variations on a theme: somebody has a problem (usually involving a murder), they consult Wolfe, Wolfe resists taking the case (unless he needs the money), Archie goads him into working, Archie (and a few other PIs) go out and gather information, Wolfe sits at his desk and thinks, everybody gathers in Wolfe’s office, and he identifies the murderer. They’re wildly unrealistic.

This should be boring AF. But it’s not. At least it’s not to me. I find them weirdly comforting. The novels and short stories actually comprise a slowly evolving love story between all the primary characters: Wolfe, Archie, the house chef Fritz, the orchid wrangler Theodore, the two police detectives (Inspector Cramer and Sgt. Purley Stebbins). Hell, even the house they live in is part of the love story. And the menus for meals, lawdy. The plot is just a reason to spend time with the characters.

Anyway, for the last year and a half, every second or third book I’ve read has been a Nero Wolfe novel. I’ve read 29 of them, in no particular order, and I still haven’t stumbled across the novel containing the scene I’m looking for. I have a list of 17 that I’ve yet to read.

At this point, I’ll probably keep reading them even after I finally find that one scene. I may as well complete the set. I figure it’ll take me another year or so to get through them all. I’m okay with that.

These are comfort murders, after all.