A CALL FOR HELP FROM MY READERS!!!

/ Brad

Take a look at this: 

For over ten years, this wonderful cartoon has been the standard-bearer for Ah Sweet Mystery. The eleven figures here (from left to right, Lord Peter Wimsey, Miss Jane Marple, Dr. Gideon Fell, Father Brown, Inspector Maigret, Edgar Allan Poe – a mere mortal granted status here as the father of the detective story – Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Charlie Chan, Ellery Queen, and Nero Wolfe) have represented all the detectives in all the fiction all over the world. Their combination of ratiocination and eccentricity have given immeasurable pleasure to millions of readers for . . . well, in 2041, it’ll be two hundred years since “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” first appeared. You do the math. (Oh, wait, I just did the math. Moving on . . .)

It’s time to assemble ALL of these great detectives – those pictured here – and the roughly 18,674 others who have graced the pages of crime fiction – and figure out which of them rank as the very best. That’s why, the Three Amigos – Sergio Angelini, Nick Cardillo and myself – will sit down on March 14 to create perhaps our most significant draft yet! Our task is near-impossible: to craft a list of the greatest literary detectives of all time. This is utter chutzpah on our part! I don’t think any one of us has the stones to try this alone, but collectively we’re insane enough to give it a go!

We’ll be following this with a summer draft of the greatest representations of detectives on film and a fall super draft ranking the eighteen films noirs used in the 1982 film Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Because we like verisimilitude, our plan is that all three lists will comprise eighteen names. That’s six selections apiece, which really isn’t very many – considering that when I sat down this afternoon and spent five minutes brainstorming literary sleuths, I came up with forty-two detectives who I think stand a good chance of making the list!! If I’m not mistaken, both Nick and Sergio are also reeling from the choices!! And since the three of us have tastes that both overlap and diverge – and we only have one veto each – this draft could get murderous very quickly!!!

And that is where YOU come in! YOU have the opportunity to influence the draft. Between now and March 14, we want YOU to make a nomination of a famous sleuth who you would like to see included on the list. The rules for selection are thus: a detective is eligible if they have appeared in print BEFORE ever appearing onscreen or on the radio. They only have to have appeared in ONE story or novel or play to be eligible. We’re not limiting our list to pure Golden Age, so your choice can appear in print anytime between 1841 and 2026. Remember: we are looking for the very best of the best!

In the comment section below, write your choice, along with one or two sentences as to why this detective needs to be on a “Very Best” list. In addition, if you would be so kind, please suggest to us one book or story title that would provide ample evidence of why your detective should be selected. NOTE: If you are an extremely private person who hates to see their names in print, feel free to e-mail me at ahsweetmysteryblog@gmail.com with your choice.

AND . . . . . . just so you don’t feel your work has been “just for fun”, here’s how your input will definitely affect the draft: I said that we three will be compiling a list of the Top Eighteen sleuths, but I’m going to expand that list to a Top Twenty List and have the TWO most popular of your selections included on our final list as “READER SELECTIONS”. I must warn you that this can only happen if you participate! 

How this will work is that I will compile a list of your choices and give the top two names to my fellow amigos when we gather to create our draft. We will then have the option to place them anywhere on the list by exercising a special blessing called “Reader’s Prerogative.” This amounts to taking an extra turn – but it is also subject to a veto. However, since it’s a reader’s choice selection, it is guaranteed a spot on the list, so a veto would only move it higher on the list! 

I hope that you will spend just a minute to send us your choice. It doesn’t have to be the one you want in #1 – it just has to be a detective whose exploits thrill you and whom you would like to see make the list. I for one can’t wait to see who you all come up with and how it will affect our final draft! 

Now . . . let the names start rolling in!

29 thoughts on “A CALL FOR HELP FROM MY READERS!!!”

  2. Well in case that one in a million chance pays off, I will suggest:

    Juanita Sheridan’s Lily Wu

    Alice Tilton’s Leonidas Witherall

    Delano Ame’s Dagobert and Jane Brown

    Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen

    I pondered Sergeant Beef by Leo Bruce yet I think what makes him so entertaining is his Watson, Lionel Townsend. You need the two together.

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      • It would probably have to be called “best detective teams” – I don’t think that, amongst the three of us, we know enough romantic couples to create a serious draft!

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        • Tommy & Tuppence Beresford, Pam & Jerry North, Jane & Dagobert Brown, Peter & Iris Duluth, to start… but I agree there may not be too many more. I’d limit the list to amateurs, rather than professionals (e.g., law enforcement).

          And, of course, for this exercise you could expand the list to include TV/film couples like the Harts, the MacMillans, etc…

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  4. I’d like to nominate Nero Wolfe and the Doorbell Rang as probably the best in the series.

    Runners-up, as far as I’m concerned would be (detective and book): Sir Henry Merrivale, The Unicorn Murders; Inspector Montalbano, The Snack Thief; Inspector De Vincenzi, The Murdered Banker; Brian Flynn, The Murders Near Mapleton; Ludovic Travers, The Case of the Missing Minutes; Comissario Guido Brunetti, Wilful Behaviour; Miss Marple, A Murder Is Announced.

    When I started thinking about this, I found I had jotted down nearly 20 detectives/authors – figured I’d better stop there and whittle the list down to 10.

    Really looking forward to these drafts.

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    • Can Merrivale AND Doctor Fell both make it on our list?? Meanwhile, YOUR list is intriguing, with many detectives I’ve heard about but never read. Nero Wolfe, however, is one of my favorites!

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      • Of course you can have Dr. Fell as well – I’d go for the Arabian Nights, Three Coffins or Ten Tea Cups.

        Try the Italians – they’re more leisurely in flow, but the journey is intriguing and the focus tends to be the impact of corruption on civil society. I include Donna Leon’s Brunetti as Italian because she lives in Venice and all her mysteries are set there. Augusto De Angelis (The Murdered Banker) wrote during the 1930s up until his death at Mussolini’s orders, because he wouldn’t stop writing about the need for the rule of law, respect for the idea of justice, and the need civic virtue. Same for Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano.

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  6. I’ll limit my nominations to the less famous, more likely to be overlooked detectives.

    Gosho Aoyama’s Edogawa Conan (“The Poisonous Coffee Case” from Case Closed, vol. 60 or the excellent TV episodes/special The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly and The Case of the Séance Double Locked Room)

    Motohiro Katou’s Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara from Q.E.D. (“The Frozen Hammer” (vol. 9), “Summer Time Capsule” (vol. 26) and “Magic & Magic” (vol. 32)

    A.C. Baantjer’s Inspector DeKok (DeKok and Murder in Seance or DeKok and the Sorrowing Tomcat)

    Seishi Yokomizo’s Kosuke Kindaichi (The Inugami Clan a.p.a. The Inugami Curse)

    Kie Houjou’s Kamo Touma (The Time Traveler’s Hourglass)

    Kelley Roos’ Jeff and Haila Troy (The Frightened Stiff)

    Baynard Kendrick’s Captain Duncan Maclain (The Whistling Hangman and Blind Man’s Bluff)

    Stuart Palmer’s Miss Hildegarde Withers (Nipped in the Bud)

    Craig Rice’s John J. Malone (Having a Wonderful Crime)

    Herbert Brean’s Reynold Frame (Hardly a Man is Now Alive)

    John Sladek’s Thackeray Phin (Black Aura)

    Arthur W. Upfield’s Boney (Cake in the Hat Box)

    Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs. Bradley (Come Away, Death)

    E.R. Punshon’s Bobby Owen (There’s a Reason for Everything)

    Christopher Bush’s Ludovic Travers (The Case of the Missing Minutes)

    Edward D. Hoch’s Dr. Sam Hawthorne (“The Problem of the Crowded Cemetery”)

    Anne van Doorn’s Robbie Corbijn and Lowina de Jong (“The Poet Who Locked Himself In”)

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    • Several of these made my initial list so they’re not ALL obscure!! I have a deep fondness for Miss Withers and Captain MacLain, despite having read very few of their titles. However, it only took one book for me to loathe and despise poor Bobby Owen! Go figure!

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  7. I would add Anthony Boucher’s “Nick Noble.” A brilliant cop who was set up, his wife died and he sank into the depths becoming a wino sitting drinking sherry in a San Francisco cafe. But when the SFPD confront a case that’s just plain IMPOSSIBLE, that COULDN’T have happened, they know who to turn to. Nick appears in a handful of brilliantly-crafted stories that are fine character pieces as well as excellent mysteries.

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    • Jeff, I grew up subscribing to EQMM, and I dimly remember these stories. I believe my library has a copy of Boucher’s Exeunt Murderers, which contains some Nick Noble tales. Now you’re setting me down a nostalgic road!!!

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  8. Although it’s highly unlikely he should make it onto the list, I will nominate Peter Lovesey’s Peter Diamond, Bloodhounds being the stand-out novel of the series.

    Robert Van Gulik’s Judge Dee deserves a mention too with Necklace and Calabash being my personal favourite of the series.

    I’m also quite fond of Patrick Quentin’s Puzzle series featuring Peter Duluth, although I’m not even sure whether he would count as a detective, starting out more as a bit of a clueless antihero at the beginning. Puzzle for Fiends was the one I liked the most, I think.

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    • It has been a long time since I read the Puzzles series, but over the last few years I’ve been slowly collecting them back, along with other Patrick Quentin and Jonathan Stagge mysteries. The great news is that we convinced my Book Club to read Puzzle for Fiends later this year! I’m very excited to dip my toe again into that amnesiac crazy house!!

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  9. If I can nominate only one, it has to be Detective Conan from the Detective Conan manga series (published as Case Closed in US). The reasons are: 1) popularity (while relatively unknown in the Western parts of the world, he is extremely popular in Asia, and not just in Japan. In some parts of Asia, he is arguably even more known than Holmes or Poirot, since the show is still airing on TV and lots of mechandises), 2) longetivity (it is still serializing after 30+ years, with 100+ volumes), 3) relevancy (there is one movie released in Japan every year, and usually did very well in the charts. Not to mention the huge amount of merchandises), and 4) influence (even though it is not the first detective manga, I think it inspired lots of others). It is difficult to recommend one book from the 100+ volumes of the series, maybe vol. 11 from the manga (it has a neat impossible crime story at the end of the volume). Alternatively, I would recommend episode 184 from the anime series: ‘A Cursed Mask Coldly Laughs’. It has a very memorable and original locked-room murder trick.

    From the manga/ anime world, I think Hajime Kindaichi from the Kindaichi Case Files series also deserve a mention. He is the unofficial grandson of Yokomizo Seishi’s Kosuke Kindaichi. Technically, the manga series precedes Detective Conan, and is still relevant until today (manga is also still serializing, albeit irregularly). Titles I would recommend include: ‘Prison Prep School Murder Case’, ‘Rosenkreuz Mansion Murder Case’, and ‘The Third Opera House Murders’. All of them had neat impossible crime tricks. Some of the cases are available as live-action drama episodes in Disney+ in some countries.

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    • I had this dream of reading the entire Conan series, but it is a challenging and expensive proposition. The series is starting to appear on Netflix, so I’ll enjoy that! Meanwhile, the Kindaichi manga are even harder to find/buy here, but a few of them are in a local library! Some live action adventures are on YouTube with terrible or no subtitles. It’s frustrating when you want to be an international connoisseur of classic detectives!

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      • Yeah, I think the netflix Conan anime, though not ideal, is still a great way to enjoy it since it is the most accessible. I would also like to nominate a couple more from the manga/ anime world that might be lesser known, but has been translated officially to English:

        • Kotoko Iwanaga from In/ Spectre series: originally is a novel series, then turned into manga, and then anime. Probably one of the most unique detective series concepts I have seen, since the detective’s task is not to find the truth. In this series, most of the crimes were committed by a ghost (yokai). However, the detective is a goddess of wisdom who has been tasked to cover up the ghost’s crime. As a result, she must come up with a more plausible alternative explanation about the case to the client, which must also fit all the given facts. For example, if a ghost commit a murder inside a locked room by passing through walls, then the detective must come up with a more realistic explanation, even if it is not the truth. Essentially this is a series about gaslighting, but very enjoyable and clever.
        • Maomao from Apothecary Diaries series: out of the newer detective/ mystery anime series, this one is probably the most popular. The detective figure is a girl who is kidnapped as a slave into a palace in a fictional ancient China setting, who later is tasked to be a poison taster. I love how it combined the traditional detective tropes with palace politics, which gave it a wider appeal. The anime is on netflix, and I think even non-mystery fans would enjoy this series.
        • Totono Kuno from Don’t Call It Mystery series: the manga has been published in English, and it also has a very popular live action drama adaptation. I like how the stories has a Chestertonian feel to it. The detective figure is also very unique, sometimes giving therapy sessions to the suspects. He likes to ask lots of philosophical questions, which may or may not be related to the crime. I also like how a lot of the mysteries are not straightforward, and sometimes the readers did not realize that a crime has happened until the end.

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