I love every oone of the books in this series ( )

The Wolfe Begins
Review of the Crimeline Kindle eBook edition (February 2018) of the Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. hardcover original (October 24, 1934)

It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust to inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.

I never really took to the un-moveable detective character of Nero Wolfe, who stays in his New York brownstone and has his assistant Archie Goodwin do all the legwork on his investigations. In my transfer of my pre-GR database into GR back in 2010, I see that I had only read a few of those novels by Rex Stout. Having recent read the very early Rex Stout serialization Her Forbidden Knight (1913) I was curious to take a look at the first Nero Wolfe novel as well.

See illustration at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Wolfe-Fer-de-Lance.jpg...
Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin prepare to fight off the venomous snake of the title in an illustration by Fred Ludekens for an abridgement which appeared in the November 1934 issue of The American Magazine. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

The case is a bit of a bait and switch as it turns out that one of the murder victims was actually an accidental casualty. The true intended victim and the culprit become apparent early on, so it is only a case of attempting to find proof. The venom of the title snake is the murder method and at one point the villain makes a murder attempt on Wolfe himself by sending the reptile in a parcel.

See cover at https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/...
The cover of the first edition hardcover published by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. in 1934. Image sourced from Goodreads.

Wolfe makes a lot of pronouncements and Goodwin does a considerable amount of running around in his roadster to assemble witnesses and testimonies. The team has already been in place for several years at this point, and occasional references are made to earlier cases, so this is not an origin story. Everything is set in place for the series with Wolfe often seeming more concerned with his meals and drink and his orchids than the actual investigation. Despite the quirkiness. it does not make for a very endearing character.

On the Berengaria Ease of Solving Scale® I would rate this as a 1 out of 10, i.e. "an easy solve", as the culprit is identified very early due to the limited field of suspects.

Trivia and Links
Fer-De-Lance was adapted as the film Meet Nero Wolfe (1936) directed by Herbert J. Biberman and starring Edward Arnold as Nero Wolfe. You can see the entire film on YouTube here. The film includes an early appearance by Rita Hayworth (then Rita Cansino) (1918-1987) in the role of Maria (see at 9'14" onwards). The film makes several changes from the source material. ( )

Il signor Nero Wolfe? Sono Sara Barstow.
- Accomodatevi - disse Wolfe. - Mi vorrete scusare, spero. Per ragioni di statica non mi alzo che in casi di urgenza. (76)

… ma da troppo tempo Wolfe m’aveva insegnato che l’angolo dove non arriva la luce e’ proprio quello dove e’ rotolato il soldino. (126)

Calma, signorina Maffei - fece Wolfe, agitando un dito verso di lei. - Temo non sia ancora giunto il momento della vostra vendetta. Non dimenticate che in seno alla nostra societa’ le persone civili e prudenti commettono i loro delitti soltanto sotto il riparo di complicate regole che permettono loro di sfuggire a ogni responsabilita’. (221)

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The first Nero Wolfe novel. It is well crafted, but quite raw compared to later works. Wolfe isn't as developed as he would become, but by he's still Wolfe. Archie is less suave in the earlier works. ( )

This was another enjoyable Nero Wolfe mystery. This involved a man dropping dead on the golf course. Wolfe realizes it was not a heart attack, but a poison dart that killed him. ( )