Who is your favorite detective from literature?
I’ve been reading Raymond Chandler stories for the majority of the summer (Just read Lady in the Lake, Farewell my Lovely, and The High Window in a row. I’ve already read The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye) so of course I’m going to have to go with the wise-cracking hard-boiled hyphen-ated Philip Marlowe. And Sam Spade isn’t worthy of being Marlowe’s driver.
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24 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.Encyclopedia Brown.
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Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe. I’ve probably read each of those books 4 times a piece.
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Batman.
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Sherlock Holmes hands down. Sorry to be obvious about it.
Oh and Marple I guess
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Dirk Gently.
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Archie Goodwin… who just happens to work for Nero Wolfe.
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The brilliant, ballsy, mysogynist, and flawed Travis McGee.
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The sad but brilliant Russian, Arkady Renko. Martin Cruz Smith has a nice collection of novels out such as Gorky Park, Polar Star, Red Square, Dogs Eat Wolves. Invariably set in grim but fascinating places (Dogs Eat Wolves is set in the radioactive Zone of Exclusion around Chernobyl, Polar Star aboard a factory fishing ship in the Bering Sea), Renko novels are melancholy, very funny at times, and always page-turners. Pravda!
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Rex Stout’s Archie Goodwin.
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So many! Poirot, Marple, Marlowe, Nick and Nora, Wolfe/Goodwin, and the list goes on. I can’t choose because I love them all, plus some I am sure I forgot. Detective stories are fun. Detective stories are not literature. Why analyze? Just enjoy.
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For my investigatory needs, I turn to the firm of Marlowe and Dresden.
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I’m thinking maybe we should step outside.
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Detective stories are literature and I’m partial to all mentioned but have a fondness for Kenzie and Genarro … among many others.
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Harry Dresden: Chicago’s ONLY wizard and full time detective .
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If you have not read Tara French’s novel “In the Woods” , do so immediately. Bewitched by both past and present events that conspire to make the life of Detective Rob Ryan tormented in multiple fashions, this is a fascinating and compelling read.
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Lord Peter Wimsey is always good, but the top has to be Wolfe and Goodwin.
As for Spade and Marlowe: how hard is it to just keep irritating people until someone punches you or conks you on the head? “I must be getting close!” Riiiiight.
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@Erich: Yes, Renko is great, no doubt about it! I LOVED “Havana Bay.” The last Renko book, “Stalin’s Ghost,” was a little weak compared to the earlier ones, though.
I also like the Hoke Mosley books from Charles Willerford, noir writer par exellence!
Heck, there’s a million detectives I like, but one thing I can’t stand is the many private dicks who are former alchies–*yawn*
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KingTaco nailed it: Encyclopedia Brown motherfucker!!!! Of course, I’ve never read any detective stories other than Encyclopedia Brown, but I can’t see how it gets any better than him.
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Marlowe and Holmes are at the top of my list. Can’t beat ‘em.
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I like Karin Slaughter’s Lena Adams. She’s feisty. Not like the usual sort of women you find in detective novels, who are interested in cooking and pruning their gardens and suffer from teenage angst even though they’re in their forties, and occasionally solve crimes in between.
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Andrea Camilleri’s Salvo Montalbano
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Sherlock Holmes beats them all. But I’ll second Lord Peter Wimsey.
And The Continental Op shits bigger detectives than Philip Marlowe.
Sorry. I love me some PM, but let’s be honest here.
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The continental op – no-name, fat, short, and a bad-ass.
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Not sure if his novels totally count as literature or not, but I do love Kinky Friedman. If he doesn’t work, I suppose that Wallander will have to do.
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