Rex Stout: An American Wit and Propagandist

Rex Stout was a propagandist. You might have thought he was only that author who came up with the enduring Nero Wolfe mysteries, featuring the larger-than-large, orchid-growing detective and his dashing and irreverent right-hand man, Archie Goodwin. But Stout (1886–1975) was that most remarkable—and American—of crime writers. He was a jack of all trades. He…