Who's your favourite fictional detective?

Paola irritates the hell out of me! I hate the ways she tells the DC that 'dessert is fruit again' - hate the bloody American term 'dessert'. I don't know why this riles me so much but it does.... (and DH and the DC saidly know this)

Have you seen this even keel?

And how does Paola reconcile her feminism with cooking all those three course lunches and dinners (having hauled ingredients up several flights of stone steps) and managing with broken washing machine and a husband who does zero around the house ?

Brunetti, ooh yes, but more for the food!

Have just discovered Stuart MacBride's books and am reading everything I can lay my hands on. His tec is Logan McRae but I really love his boss, DI Steel, who's hilarious. In fact all the books are, and I highly recommend them to anyone who hasn't had the pleasure.

Someone mentioned Roy Grace - I've read all of these and they were OK-ish; my problem is that they're incredibly repetitive. I know there has to be some re-capping with a series but I couldn't believe it the first time I read the exact same passage which had just been copied and pasted out of the previous book. Naughty Peter James.

No-one read Fred Vargas? I love Adamsberg and Danglard, quite wacky stories though.

Another vote for Brunetti

Guido Brunetti (at the moment)

The extraordinary Dr Fell in the wonderfully atmospheric novels of John Dickson Carr. And Lord Peter Wimsey...

I have to vote for the Young Sherlock Holmes series by Andrew Lane - they are fab! They spell out his 'missing' years - the teenage years that made him the man he becomes....how and why he learned violin, is so against a relationship, what pushed him into martial arts and how young he was when he developed his logical deductive skills...I can't put them down! The latest is due out about October I think...the fifth one ...and in this latest (God I couldn't wait for this bit!) we finally find out what put him off love.....it's called Snake Bite and is due any day.

OK am a total fangirl, and I don't mind admitting I nick them BEFORE I give them to my teen - I have managed to get away with that so far.....

Oh yes and the Cumberbatch/Freeman interpretation of Holmes & Watson.

Another vote for Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone, which reminds me I owe myself the latest installments!

Also a long term fan of Marple (written or Joan Hickson if TV, def not Geraldine McEwan, her portrayal just never gelled for me) and Poirot (preferably those without Hastings if the TV version).

Have recently discover the Stella Mooney series by David Lawrence which are 'gritty' but fab.

And always love a Columbo.

I have rather eclectic taste in detective fiction!

And on TV....

Sherlock and Watson in the new BBC1 series - Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are fabulous and the writing/acting/casting/styling/production are all exceptional.

Most of the above but also Lund and Meyer (from Danish version of 'The Killing'!) Can I include Lund's jumper?

Bryant and May - Christopher Fowler - love them
Matthew Bartholmew - Susanna Gregory
Marcus Didius Falco - Lindsay Davis
Skinner - Quintin Jardine
Oz Blackstone - quintin Jardine
Primavera Blackstone - Quintin Jardine
Kinsey Millhone - Sue Grafton
Stephanie Plum - Janet Evanovich (the earlier books are best)

And this is just the beginning.... I love detective fiction! Love this thread

Thursday Next also of course!

Miss Marple
Mma Ramotswe

and yes yes to Aurelio Zen/Rufus Sewell on tv (haven't read any books yet)

Philip Marlowe (Raymond Chandler) - surely the original hard-boiled PI?

I like a lot of those mentioned - Rebus, Hole, Brodie, Dalziel, Thorne, Warshawaki etc. People haven't mentioned Wallender who I think ranks up there. And what about Aurelio Zen? Particularly when played by Rufus Sewell!

I'm intrigued that so many people are saying Falco. I have caught a few on Radio 4 ( am rather fond of Anton Lesser ) but haven't actually read any. I think that I will have to give the books a go.

As far as Simon Serrailler goes, I read one ages ago ( the first one, I think ) as I was a fan of Susan Hill in her pre detective fiction days but I was a bit 'meh' to be honest. Do they get better? Or was I just missing something?

Falco (just been reading on LD's webpage that she is unlikely to write any more but she is writing a new series featuring Albia as the detective. Domitian on the throne so presumably MDF and Helena are living in discreet retirement.

Lord Peter

VI

Kate Brannigan

Albert Campion

MJ Trow's Lestrade

Just borrowed The Eyre Affair so will see about Thursday Next......

Thursday Next. (Jasper Fforde)
Jimmy Perez. (Anne Cleeves)

Columbo
&
Monk

Oh Lee, that's where your name is from! Every time I see it, a little bell rings in my brain.

I love Virgil. That fucking Flowers.

I'm a long term Agatha Christie fan so Miss Marple & Hercule Poirot of course.
TV detectives - Jane Tennison, Andy Dalziel, Jonathon Creek & of course Columbo.