From TV, books, movies, whatever, who is your favorite detective in the fictional world?


My favorite, hands down, is Columbo, I love watching him, he is just so funny, and he's a different kind of detective altogether because he doesn't carry a gun, he very rarely ever loses his temper, he doesn't do the bad cop thing, he just acts like a dumb cop who doesn't know too much and is always doing something weird but he's smart and he always catches his man, or woman.

Now something I find interesting, a lot of people say that Sherlock Holmes is the best detective, obviously because he was really the first established literary detective and he had such unusual methods of doing everything, his is a legacy that will last forever. No doubt as far as detectives go he's brilliant, but I do find him overrated...but oddly enough, even though Goren from Law and Order: Criminal Intent was modeled after Sherlock Holmes, a lot of his behavior reminds me of Columbo.

And in fact there was one episode of CI where Goren tricks the murderer into staying up all night tearing apart his garage looking for a tooth cap belonging to the guy he killed, and he can't find it because there isn't one, but his admission still gets him arrested. And likewise I found out there was an episode of Columbo from the 70s where he did something very similar, telling the killer that the victim's contact lens was knocked loose during her attack and wherever it is, that's where the body was stored, so he breaks into a closed city garage to break into his car trunk and find it. So it seems Bobby from CI is modeled after two great fictional detectives.

book wise.. Alex Cross... by james patterson

tv wise... i would say Lenny Briscoe and John Munch--- they had the best lines!

was trying to think of a movie detective... but the only one i could think of was Detective John McClain.... "yippi kiyay MFer" LOL

Alonzo Harris (Training Day)
Alex Cross (James Patterson books)

I guess I have to go with the younger Columbo.

Nancy Drew.

I'm sure there are some I'm completely forgetting but Columbo for tv & Hercule Poirot for books. Although I am developing a real fondness for Mitch Mitchell

Shaft is my fav, but only because he had that kick ass theme song

Does Angel count???

I dont care what he does... he looks good and loves to suck on necks! lol

I don't know......Magnum P.I.