Coming at you faster than a stretchy missile off of a young boy's outstretched finger(s), it's Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe's The Rubber Band! What is it? Why, it's a classic mystery of the old school, with armchair detection aplenty, two-fisted shoe-leather gumshoeing (?), gals, dames, dudes, orchids, bankers, and crime cases no cop could ever crack!

There's also no shortage of sizeist and sexist horseshit, straight out of the 30s and glued onto the page, so it's not all fun and games. But where else are you going to get a narrator who drinks maybe six glasses of milk and eats a dish of lamb kidneys and green peppers? Probably nowhere. Or anyway, possibly nowhere else.

No magnifying glasses needed for this caper, but we warn you: this plot MAY require a flow chart (or two). You need not fear, though, because we promise that we'll be able to hold it all together—with the help of The Rubber Band, anyway!

Recommendations:

• "Proust's Madeleine, But for People Who Grew Up With a Single Dad" by the great Mara Wilson
• Alita: Battle Angel
• American Truck Simulator (game)

Music Recs:

• "Stretchin' Out (In a Rubber Band)" by Bootsy Collins
• "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" by Boys Don't Cry
• "Friggin in the Riggin" by Sex Pistols