The Last Drive: A Canby Rankin Mystery

Before there was Nero Wolfe there were others, detectives such a Canby Rankin, Dol Bonner, and Tecumseh who paved the road for the most famous of Stout’s detectives. The Last Drive features Canby Rankin, the “Southerner who had turned detective,” in a story serialized in Golfers Magazine. The novel can be viewed as a precursor of Fer-de-Lance, the very first Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin mystery, in the sense that the device used here is almost identical to the murder weapon at the center of Fer-de-Lance. This is a novel that all fans of Wolfe (and Stout) will enjoy not only in itself but also in the light of its influence on future works.