 |
| I love this cover's simple elegance! |
I’m an admirer of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe tales, which are some of the most fun I’ve ever had reading mysteries. I particularly love the narrative voice of Archie Goodwin, Wolfe’s assistant. The two are complete opposites: Archie’s a tough man of action and Wolfe is a lazy armchair detective—he quite literally refuses to budge anywhere.
It’s interesting to see what author Dave Zeltserman has written in the way of an homage to Wolfe. His detective, Julius Katz, is unlike Wolfe in many ways. He goes through rigorous exercises and martial arts training, for one thing. However, like Wolfe, he absolutely refuses to work unless he has to, and he also happens to be a gourmet (particularly when it comes to fine wines).
Both Zeltserman and Stout have one thing in common: Archie. But Zeltserman has come up with an absolutely brilliant, innovative variation on Archie Goodwin— Julius Katz’s Archie is not real. By that I mean Archie is not a person, but a supercomputer: a marvel of technology that Julius wears as a tie clip. Archie is designed to simulate human intelligence, and by observing his boss he hopes to one day solve a murder before he does.
Archie works with probabilities and logic, but that doesn’t stop him from nagging his boss Julius, in an eagerness to refine his neuron networks as often as possible. The e-book Julius Katz Mysteries is available for free, and all mystery lovers should take advantage of this offer. It collects two stories that were published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine—the first is more of a novella, while the second is more conventional short story length. Both, however, are great fun.
