Favorite Fictional Detectives-Book Division

Cafe Society
21

Lord Peter Wimsey, by Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord Peter Wimsey, by Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord Peter Wimsey, by Dorothy L. Sayers

22

Woof.

The gunpowder helicopter!

23

Lord Peter Wimsey
Marcus Didius Falco (from the series by Lindsey Davis set in ancient Rome)
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford

24

Good book; whenever someone asks for non-Western European/Tolkien based fantasy, that’s one of my first recommendations.

25

Holmes
The Continental Op
Ellery Queen

26

And its apparently back out as an e-book, after being out of print for years.

27

Surely someone with your handle can think of another.

28
  1. Nero Wolfe
  2. Lew Archer
  3. Adam Dalgliesh (from P.D. James’s series of mysteries)
29

I’ll second Agent Pendergast. I’ve read and enjoyed all 18, although I’m a little pissed off that the last two books, along with the unpublished next one, are in serial-cliffhanger format and should have just been released as one book. It wouldn’t have been prohibitively large.

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30

Doctor Eszterhazy. Created by Avram Davidson.

31

Let’s see…

I’m not sure that I’m not slighting some others, but these are probably at the top of the list. In no particular order.

Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters
Dame Frevisse by Margaret Frazer
Joe Leaphorn (with a nod to Jim Chee) by Tony Hillerman

It’s unfortunate that there aren’t any new books about any of those three. Makes me sad, it does.

32

I am required to suggest Temperance Brennan, but I’m a sucker for Philip Marlowe.

“Red Wind” was an obscure Raymond Chandler story until Lou Grant read that paragraph on “Mary Tyler Moore,” but my dad had it in an anthology from WWII.

33

I read more recent mystery books by bestselling authors, so my list will be vastly different from most…
That being said, I love:

  1. Harry Bosch (books written by Michael Connelly)
  2. Lincoln Rhymes and Amelia Sachs (books written by Jeffery Deaver)
  3. Stephanie Plum (books written by Janet Evanovich)(okay, so this one really isn’t a detective, but the books are mystery-based)

Other mystery books in a series that I enjoy:
Myron Bolitar (books written by Harlan Coben)
Alex Delaware (books written by Jonathan Kellerman)

I gave James Patteson’s Alex Cross a few tries, but I finally had to come to the conclusion that James Patterson (in my opinion) can’t write worth shit.

34

If you ever need a confirmation on that, try to read his science fiction and fantasy books.

35

Excellent choices Idle thoughts. On a more international level:

James Church’s Inspector O. (How to survive in North Korea)
Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander
Qui Xiaalong’s Inspector Chen (Modern China)

36

Elvis Cole, Jack Reacher and Spencer

Yeah…I said it:cool:

37

If Encyclopedia Brown gets a mention, then I would like to respectfully call your attention to Bob, Pete, and Jupiter.

38

Agent Pendergast
Richard Jury (Martha Grimes)
Oskar Rheinhardt, books by Frank Tallis set in 1900s Vienna

39

Kinky Friedman’s Kinky Friedman.

Andrew Vachss’s Burke.

40

I tend to read more historical mysteries than contemporary ones. For sheer enjoyment of the characters and settings, I think my top three would be:

Lord Peter Wimsey
Amelia Peabody
Benjamin January (Barbara Hambly’s detective, a freedman living in 1860’s New Orleans)

I also like Cadfael, Joe Leaphorn, William Monk, Thomas Lynley, Gordianus the Finder, and Marcus Didius Falco.