Who are your FAVORITE SLEUTHS?

[Americanchild]

Thanks for starting this tread as I am always looking for new authors. Cleo Coyle's character Clare Cossi is one of my favorite even if it is hard to believe she encounters/witnesses so many murders as a coffee house manager! Janet Evanovich's character Stephanie Plum is by far my all time favorite.

[ficbot]

Cornwell's early stuff is very good but her more recent ones are really awful, She has declined a lot, imho. Anything from after the time she tried to go 'literary' is just dreadful.

Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series is very good, and consistently so. Same with the J.D. Robb series. Others I like, both old and new:

- Raymond Chandler is fun. There is also a series available at Fictionwise in mutltiformat which pays homage, except that the Marlowe-esque character is a dwarf from another dimension who accidentally gets sucked into 1930's mob Chicago, where he sets up a PI practice. I believe the author is Tee Morris.

- Holmes is fun. Jacques Futrelle, who came a little later, is similar in style (short stories and novellas all featuring a logic-and-deduction sort of PI) but Futrelle was more into the 'locked room' type of story. The novella I read of his had the main detective character bet he could escape from an unescapable prison cell within a certain time period.

- Other Conan Doyle contemporaries who get good reviews: the Arsene Lupin series by Maurice LeBlanc, the Raffles series, Chesterton's Father Brown...

- Then there is Sayers, Christie, Bramah, Anna Katharine Green, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Wilkie Collins...

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

if you like perry mason you should definitely try the Donald Lam mysteries by "A.A. Fair" ; that's actually an ESG pseudonym. different detective, but similar "creative" approach to problem solving, and similar "how is he going to get himself out of this one" secondary mystery in each book. they're often really funny, too.

Thanks, I will. Of course I immediately recognized the "A.A. Fair" pseudonym, but I don't recall ever checking out anything he's written under it.

[DDHarriman]

Hi

Jack Reacher from Lee Child
Joe Pike and Elvis Cole from Robert Crais
And of course, the most of them all Tom Ripley from Patricia Highsmith.

Best,

[TC Beacham]

Wow, there are so many great ones here - and quite a few I haven't read.

Thanks everybody!

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by DDHarriman

And of course, the most of them all Tom Ripley from Patricia Highsmith.

I wouldn't class Ripley as a sleuth; he commits the crimes rather than detecterisies them.

[rlparker]

Originally Posted by Americanchild

Thanks for starting this tread as I am always looking for new authors....

Yeah, good thread, thanks! Americanchild, I don't think your TBR list will ever get short now that you're hanging out around here!

+1 for Marlowe! (I just finished reading "The Big Sleep"--great read!)

And another thing, what about that word "sleuth"? Kinda fun to say!

[Solitaire1]

One of my favorites that hasn't been mentioned is Jimmy Kudo/Conan Edogawa (this is the same person) from "Detective Conan" (Japanese Title)/"Case Closed" (U.S. Title), a manga and anime series. This is an excellent series featuring a young man named Jimmy Kudo who is considered by many in the series to be the Sherlock Holmes of his generation and with his physical and mental skills the comparison is justified. The series features a combination of excellent mysteries that will leave you guessing until the final reveal, and humor. A nice touch in the manga is that in each volume the author includes an article on other famous fictional detectives including Sherlock Holmes, Lt. Columbo, and Arsene Lupin.

[hike_gc]

Sherlock Holmes, novels of Will Thomas, Wilkie Collins.

[shootingMaNs]

I don't think anyone has mentioned these, but Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels are very good.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a super sleuth, but Jim Butcher's 'The Dresden Files' are also very good. Dresden is a wizard and a PI that helps the Chicago PD solve strange crimes. The first few books are more mystery like, the later ones more fantasy, but all are great reads.

[zipzip]

Nancy Drew, of course. Sure wish the original, out-of-print editions of her pre-1970 books were available as ebooks.

[Fiona]

Dirk Gently (Douglas Adams)

[Sparrow]

Robert Hans van Gulik - Judge Dee

H. R. F. Keating - Inspector Ghote

And also, - Nils-Olof Franzén's Agaton Sax - a sleuth I loved as a child.

[HarryT]

Morse (I prefer the books to the TV series), Rebus, Holmes (obviously), Amelia Peabody.

[Snowman]

Amongst others, many of whom have already been mentioned, I very much enjoy the two sleuths introduced by John Dickson Carr - Dr Gideon Fell, and (by his pseudonym Carter Dickson) Sir Henry Merrivale. I'm sure I remember the latter describing some of the more turgid Russion authors as "Russian Crutch Walkers!"

snowman