There's Eduardo Mendoza's schizophrenic detective - we never learn his name - who figures in '
The Mystery of the Enchanted Crypt' and in "
The Olive Labyrinth'. The books are small masterpieces of mystery comedy.
Also from Spain, Manuel Vasquez Montalban's
Pepe Carvalho, an ex-communist private eye who keeps himself warm in winter by feeding the fireplace with pages from 'Capital' or 'What is to be Done?' has appeared in a long series of detective novels most of which are well worth looking at.
If you want bangs for bucks, you can get just about everyone from Sherlock Holmes to Maigret in Fruttero and Lucentini's hilarious account of an international conference called to solve the
Mystery of Edwin Drood. (The authors have written other crime fictions, but most of them are now out of print, I believe, unless you can read the original Italian.