The Rubber Band
Rex Stout
 Archie books two new clients on the same day, and before the day is over Wolfe has to choose which to keep and there are more than two crimes to untangle. The client he keeps in the end is a beautiful young woman, but it's Wolfe who reads her Hungarian poetry, not Archie. The novel introduces Lieutenant Rowcliff, not one of the NYPD's finest (in the opinion not only of Wolfe but Inspector Cramer). Rowcliff's search for Clara Fox in the brownstone earns Wolfe's enmity, which lasts until the final Wolfe novel in 1975.