I’m reading Robert Goldsborough’s “prequel” to the Nero Wolfe books, “Archie Meets Nero Wolfe”. It’s okay. Archie’s language is much more refined in this than it was in the early books Stout wrote. He was a true roughneck in “Fer de Lance,” “The League of Frightened Men,” “The Rubber Band,” “The Red Box,” and “Too Many Cooks.” In this book we’re expected to believe that Archie, at nineteen or twenty, is a month or two away from Ohio and thoroughly self-reliant and composed enough to work smoothly with the early Panzer, Durkin, Cather (who, in a plain case of foreshadowing, is portrayed as a jerk, which Archie never quite said in the Stout-written parts of the Canon), and even Del Bascom.

Reading Goldsborough makes me realize just how impressive a job all those anonymous writers who worked for the Stratemeyer Syndicate producing books for the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Dana Girls and other popular YA series in the mid-20th century did. Acquiring and keeping continuity in the voices of the main characters is really really difficult.

I’m only halfway through. So far I’d give Goldsborough an “A” for effort and about a “C-minus” for execution. We’ll see when I finish it.