Fav. detectives in literature

Many of the printed page's detectives have at some point or another made it to the small and/or big screen: Phillip Marlow, Sam Spade, Perry Mason, Sherlock Holmes, Mike Hammer, Philo Vance, etc., which must mean that somebody somewhere thought they were that good...but what about you? When it comes to detectives in literature, who are among your favorites?

I don't really think I have any. I've never read much of any one author's work so don't follow a series with the same blood hound on the cases, though I did enjoy Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! Amateur sleuths seem to be more along my alley, like Cornelia Van Gorder in Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Bat. How about everyone else?

Holmes is my favorite but I like the character Fletch by Gregory McDonald. I got excited when they made a movie out of the first book. The excitment died when I saw it. Chevy Chase was totally wrong for the part. McDonald did a mini spin off with a character named Flynn that I liked too. I would have used Brian Dennehy if they made a movie 30 years ago.

Oddly enough, I have never read Sherlock Holmes, no novels anyway, I've read one or two of the short stories, but for some reason have never even really picked up one of the full length books with him and Watson, why that is I don't know.

Well, since I know you have a library card (:biggrin:), see if they have The Complete Sherlock Holmes. It has all 56 short stories and the four novels.

They don't. They have the four novels all separate but they don't have the whole collection. They don't have in a lot of good stuff, which is why I'm always having them get things in on loan from somewhere else.