Inspector Cramer

Inspector Fergus Cramer (his full name is only ever mentioned once, in Where There's A Will) of the New York Police Department is Nero Wolfe's main foil in the Nero Wolfe mystery series by Rex Stout. Though he hates Wolfe's attitude, snobbishness, and all-around love of showing off, he has a good bit of respect for the detective's ability to solve mysteries. He is also grateful to Wolfe for saving his job in The Silent Speaker (1946). Cramer's ever-present assistant is Sergeant Purley Stebbins.

Cramer is a simple man who shares few, if any, of Wolfe's tastes; in the story "Black Orchids", for example, when he sees the orchid that Wolfe went to such trouble to procure, he says something to the effect that it's "pretty, but drab", and that he prefers geraniums. Cramer is married; his wife sometimes answers the phone at their apartment, but she is never developed further. They have one son, who fought in the European theater of World War II.

Cramer is the hero of one novel, 1939's Red Threads.

Inspector Cramer was portrayed in the recent A&E Nero Wolfe series by Bill Smitrovich.