Favorite Fictional Detective?

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Who is your favorite fictional detective? Sherlock Holmes? Mike Hammer? Monk? Kojak? Nero Wolf? Dirty Harry Callhan? Father Brown? Tempe Brennan? TV/movies/books–they all count. Mine is Columbo! Rumpled, under-estimated, and brilliant!
 
Andy Barker, P.I.

Was a TV series recently, but got cancelled after four episodes. It was hilarious!:rotfl:
 
PoliSciProf- I’m always amazed by how often we agree. Columbo is my favorite too!
 
I have a very soft spot for the rumpled Lieutenant (Columbo) and his ‘one more question’. Watching him work is SUCH fun as the net draws tighter and tighter around the culprit.
 
Mongo.

As in, Robert Fredrickson, a.k.a. “Mongo the Magnificent”, a dwarf who was a circus headliner, earned a black belt, became a professor of criminal justice at NYU and, ultimately, the most unusual private investigator I’ve ever heard of (created by George C. Chesbro).

I also like Stephanie Plum (Janet Evanovich), Alex Cross (James Patterson), and my newest fave is Sister Agatha (Aimee and David Thurlo), a cloistered nun who rides a Harley Davidson motorcycle with a retired police dog named Pax riding in the sidecar.

I like unusual characters. 😃
 
PoliSciProf said:
Who is your favorite fictional detective? Sherlock Holmes? Mike Hammer? Monk? Kojak? Nero Wolf? Dirty Harry Callhan? Father Brown? Tempe Brennan? TV/movies/books–they all count. Mine is Columbo! Rumpled, under-estimated, and brilliant!
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Well I do like Sherlock Holmes but my all time favorite is Hercule Poirot 😃
 
Whoops! Almost forgot about Dr. Mark Sloan! (diagnosis murder)
 
I love Sherlock Holmes. He’s the original modern detective. I think I’ve read every one of Homes’ adventures at least twice and I never get tired of them-even when I know the ending. I always find something new in each story that keeps me interested.

Scout :tiphat:
 
What about Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, or Hercule Poirot? Or Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax - like Miss Marple, she is an unlikely detective. Mrs. Pollifax is a modern day retired widow who becomes a CIA agent (if I remember correctly) and gets into and out of all kinds of trouble surrounding a mystery.

Then there is Kao K’o Kung a.k.a. Koko and his companion Yum-Yum and their person, Jim Qwilleran written by Lillian Jackson Brown.

I will say that I like Janet Evonovich’s Stephanie Plum although her morals leave a bit to be desired:D.

I also like the trio with a Mrs. Murphy (a cat) as the lead detective by Rita Mae Brown and her cat “Sneaky Pie Brown”. There was at least one made for t.v. movie of these.

What about Jim Chee, the Navajo police officer in Tony Hillerman’s books (and at least one movie)?

Nate the Great and the Bobbsey Twins are always great starter detective stories.

As you can tell I really don’t have any one favorite detective but do enjoy the ones where the pets do some of the detective work.
Brenda V.
 
Lord Peter Wimsey
Brother Cadfael
Father Brown
Sherlock Holmes
Miss Marple
 
I am a Sherlock Holmes fanatic and have been since childhood (I’m 50). I’ve read the Canon over and over and OVER again, and I’ve read lots of the pastiches, too. I especially love the Laurie King novels.

The dream of my life is to be qualified to join one of the Holmsian societies. Unfortunately, I don’t have a brain that retains trivia, so I can never remember details like where Holmes and Watson dined after the King of Bavaria gave Holmes the advance. So I probably won’t be admitted.

I have written a teen novel utilizing the Holmes characters, but it isn’t out.

I also like James Bond and the whole British Secret Service “world” of Ian Fleming and John Gardner. The movies are fun, but the books are fantastic. There are some simliarities between Bond and Holmes, but there are also some very big differences (e.g., women!).
 
I love Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers). I think my favorite of the Wimsey stories is The Nine Tailers.

I love Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch mysteries so much that I have all of them in hardcover.

I’m a big fan of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone mysteries. Some of the titles are better than others, but Kinsey herself is a most interesting character.

Normally, I like my mysteries to be gritty and real and for the most part I don’t care for the cozy mysteries much.

If you like religious toned mysteries, find the Sister Joan series by Veronica Black. They all have the title A Vow of…
These are marvelous stories.
 
  1. Spenser, from the “Spenser novels” by Robert Parker–the classic Phillip Marlowe-inspired tough & intelligent shamus
  2. John “Grimjack” Gaunt from the (defunct) First Comics ***Grimjack ***–yep, this one is obscure, but creators John Ostrander and Tim Truman did a heck of job doing the tough guy detective genre in a SF&F setting (“Sweet cynical Cynosure, the pan-dimensional city where the multiverse meets. Magic works here, high technology works there–and swords work everywhere”
more to follow
 
I liked the Albert Campion series by Margery Allingham…I saw a PBS show with Peter Davison (Doctor Who) playing the character and it got me interested. I understand there were a couple of the stories he did, but my station only showed the one. Have you ever read a book because you liked the tv/movie adaptation?
 
Brenda_V said:
I will say that I like Janet Evonovich’s Stephanie Plum although her morals leave a bit to be desired:D.

What about Jim Chee, the Navajo police officer in Tony Hillerman’s books (and at least one movie)?
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Love Stephanie Plum…

Love Jim Chee, Jim Leaphorn, et al…

Also love Dirk Pitt by Clive Cussler.

As for TV, I love Monk.
 
  1. Long before “Angel” or “Nick Knight” there was Marvel Comic’s (via Tomb of Dracula) Hannibal King, the Vampire-Detective–a tough guy detective who unlike the mentioned late-comers, never consumated the curse.
 
Biblioassistant said:
If you like religious toned mysteries, find the Sister Joan series by Veronica Black. They all have the title A Vow of…
These are marvelous stories.
Click to expand...
I’ll have to look for those! Right now I’m looking forward to the Thurlos’ latest Sister Agatha mystery “False Witness”. Have you read those?

I forgot my favorite detectives from my younger days… The Three Investigators! My favorite was “The Secret of the Haunted Mirror”.
 
Sherlock Holmes.

What about Charlie Chan? Jessica Fletcher?

And if you want to go in a less serious tone, Clouseau:)
 
Wow! I really like these “favorite” threads. They always give me a lot to think about and open new avenues for reading. While I still favor Colombo as #1, Sam Spade has to up there too.
 
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