What are some examples of mystery books that MUST be read in their original language in order to not miss any clues? Are there any Nero Wolfe books like that?
English is not my first language, but I prefer to read books in their original language so that nothing is lost in translation, specially if the work depends a lot on wordplay (Like Terry Pratchett's books)
When I was young I read lots of Agatha Christie's books in Spanish and I liked most of them, but I had a bad experience with Why Didn't They Ask Evans? because:
- In Spanish the title is Trayectoria de Búmeran ("The boomerang's trajectory", completely unrelated), and because of that I didn't realize the titular question was that important.
- Because of the information lost in translation you are unable to foresee the main plot twist. The translator just added a footnote explaining what happened, and it just felt dumb.
There is also one Isaac Asimov's novel that relies on the word "lemonade", and that only makes sense in English.
Recently I read the first book in the Nero Wolfe series, Fer-de-lance, I liked it and I'm interested in reading more, but the autor uses lots of old American slang that I found a bit difficult to understand, so I thought that maybe I should read them in Spanish. But then I remembered that sometimes mystery novels uses wordplay for their clues (like in the examples I mentioned before). So:
TL,DRL: are there mystery novels that must be read in their original language in order to get all the clues? Are there any Nero Wolfe books like that?