I started watching Luther because, well: Idris Elba. But holy crap, Luther makes Elliot Stabler look mellow by comparison.
For a moment, I thought you were going to say “Time for another meeting … in bed!” 
Sipowicz; he’ll probably tool up on the perp, first. Of course, Simone (the sissy boy) will have to look the other way and then give him a lecture. Maybe Andy’ll tool up on him, too.
Jane Tennison or DCI Jack Frost. Both have a dogged determination to hunt down the killer and I’d trust either of them to find whoever had murdered me.
I’m a big fan of the Columbo program, but I wouldn’t want him investigating my murder. His method played out well in the stories, but many of his cases don’t look like they would stand up in court. I wouldn’t want justice hinging on what camera a guy picked up off a shelf.
Defensive Indifference, there was a time when Frank Pembleton would have been my pick, too. Maybe in true reality he still would be, but if I get to pick someone from fiction, I want a detective with a better clear rate.
So probably Batman. Because Batman.
If I’m more constrained to reality, I’ll take Gil Grissom. Brilliant, obsessive, creative.
Cordelia Gray or Nancy Drew.
It would be one of the few times in my life a hot babe cared about me.
It is a tough call, but I’m with you. It would warm my dead heart to know that Foyle was working to solve my murder.
Killer 1: Who’s that at the door?
Killer 2: Foyle
Killer 1: What’s he asking about?
Killer 2: The weather.
Killer 1: FUCK!
Exactly. He won’t let rules or law get in the way of getting the killer.
If Dirk Gently is meant to solve my murder, he will solve my murder, and what either of us want has nothing to do with it. 
If Jessica Fletcher “solves” my murder, she is a liar and is simply framing some poor guy for her own twisted crimes.
Or Sam Spade? Or Philip Marlowe?
I wouldn’t pick them, but they’d be on the board.
Replying to my own post, my second choice would Mack Bolan The Executioner–not to “investigate” the murder precisely, but to go on a roaring rampage of revenge to punish those responsible for my death. Or maybe Marvel Comic’s ripoff character The Punisher–Frank Castle.
Five bucks to anyone who remembers The Spider, who “spins a Web of Justice.”
“The Spider … spins … again!” 
Nope, but I remember who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.
And you could do a lot worse than Lamont Cranston.
I knew McBain well, and edited eight of his novels back in the ‘90s. He WAS a randy old bastard.
No love for any of the other great forgottens of vintage crime fiction? How about Jacques Futrelle’s Professor S.F.X. Van Dusen, aka “The Thinking Machine?” He was the guy who “thought” himself out of Cell 13, the death cage of Boston Penitentiary.
Or Ernest Brahman’s Max Carrados, the blind dude whose other senses were so powerful he could read a printed page with his fingertips?
Private investigator Emerson Cod knows a guy.
I remember him. But then I’m old.
barney? really ? andy maybe but barney? oh and ya forgot matlock too
Nick and Nora Charles. And I’m putting it into my final requests that there should be a dinner party after my death so they can identify the murderer at it.
if i was going hardboiled … i want dennis farinas characters from crime story or law and order …
Joe Grey.