Rex Stout Does Not Belong In Russia: Exporting the Detective Novel

Rex Stout was a titan of twentieth-century American detective fiction. His genius hero Nero Wolfe, weighing in at one-seventh of a ton, was featured in more than 70 novels and novellas with his wise-cracking hard-boiled assistant and amanuensis Archie Goodwin. Besides being a great story teller, however, Stout was a staunch left-wing anti-Communist, a political position that found its way into Stout's plots (and Nero Wolfe's dialogue). So it is surprising that the Wolfe novels were published-and popular-in the Soviet Union. In this study, Molly Jane Levine Zuckerman traces Stout's popularity in Russia, both during and since Communism, explores Stout's influence on Russian detectiv writers, and attempts to explain why Rex Stout-and Nero Wolfe-flourished on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

"Molly Zuckerman tackles a mystery worthy of Nero Wolfe-why the Russians loved him. Her meticulously documented study should appeal to fans of Rex Stout, Communist and capitalist alike." -Paul Levine, author of Bum Rap and the Jake Lassiter series