# Has there ever been a truly great detective? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2010, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568 "2010-07-30T12:06:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/1 "2010-07-30T12:06:38Z")
So I was watching an episode of Mr. Monk and got to wondering if anyone like that has ever existed outside fiction. Someone along the lines of Monk, Columbo or Holmes. Not necessarily working as a detective (though preferably) but someone who was known for incredible levels of observation and deductive reasoning. There are likely (though I don’t know of any) to be detectives who have solved complex crimes but i’m hoping to find someone who was known for doing it consistently rather than as a once in a lifetime leap of genius. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/2 "2010-07-30T12:17:02Z")
[Eugène François Vidocq](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Fran%C3%A7ois_Vidocq) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/3 "2010-07-30T12:33:57Z")
[Jigsaw John](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._St._John_(detective)). ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/4 "2010-07-30T13:25:08Z")
[William J. Burns](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Burns) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/5 "2010-07-30T14:16:57Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > [Jigsaw John](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._St._John_(detective)). From that page: > [@](#): > > dogged determination Says it all. And explains every one of the possibilities offered here. (Well, Vidocq had a huge system of informers, which beats deductive skills every time.) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/6 "2010-07-30T15:10:16Z")
> [@mittu](#): > > Someone along the lines of Monk, Columbo or Holmes. Not necessarily working as a detective (though preferably) but someone who was known for incredible levels of observation and deductive reasoning. [Dr. Joseph Bell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bell), one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspirations in creating Holmes? ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/7 "2010-07-30T15:42:08Z")
The great detective has long been a standard of literature. I’m guessing the average person can name a dozen great detectives from books/tv/film but can’t name a single actual detective. Who caught the unabomber? Who solved the Brinks heist? ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/8 "2010-07-30T16:11:23Z")
The Unabomber’s brother noticed phrasing in the manifesto published in the NY Times that took him from vaguely wondering to actively suspicious that Ted had written it. He felt the FBI was overwhelmed by all the leads they had, and had Ted’s past investigated by a PI and a lawyer. They then convinced the FBI that there was a great likelihood Ted had written the manifesto, based on past letters and essays. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/9 "2010-07-30T16:43:57Z")
J. J. Arms? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/10 "2010-07-30T21:20:48Z")
> [@anson2995](#): > > The great detective has long been a standard of literature. I’m guessing the average person can name a dozen great detectives from books/tv/film but can’t name a single actual detective. Who caught the unabomber? Who solved the Brinks heist? Of course, partly that is because a good detective on the police force is not likely to be well-known outside his precinct: Part of detective work (depending on what dept.) depends on the detective being unknown by the gangsters. If he’s on TV every week, that’s difficult. For the last 100 years, starting with the introduction of fingerprints, we rely more and more on physical evidence and not confessions alone. As fascinating as the mind games are that Columbo does with his suspects, they would be hard to be admissable in court with no witness to the confession/ slip up. Also, the detective might notice the evidence, but he still needs the lab guys and CSI team to properly process and identify the drop of blood and DNA or whatever. So one single detective won’t stand up on TV and accept the fame for what a whole team did. It’s like asking about real scientists: there are thousands of scientists doing great work around the country, but how many are on TV often enough that the public knows them? That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, you just have to ask their colleagues instead of the public. And Dr. Bell, cited already as inspiration for Holmes, did certainly exist, even though he was a doctor and not a detective (though I consider both closely related when regarding the deductive aspect and the exact observation). ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-truly-great-detective/548568/11 "2010-07-31T07:30:23Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspirations in creating Holmes? Also [Hans Gross](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Gross) “an Austrian criminal jurist and an examining magistrate. He is believed to be the creator of the field of criminalistics”, contemporaneous with and possibly inspiring the stories of Sherlock Holmes (a real person but also subject of a series of fictional detective novels by J Sydney Jones)…