Fer-De-Lance — Rex Stout

Rarely stirring from his luxurious brownstone, the fat (one-seventh of a ton), beer-drinking, orchid-fancying mastermind spins his webs of uncanny deduction--while his wry, tough sidekick Archie tends to the legwork (and the girl-watching). Wolfe's cases are baffling and his methods outrageous. And Wolfe himself is one of the great characters of mystery fiction.