9 authors pick the best detectives in fiction

Anthony Horowitz, author of Marble Hall Murders: Sherlock Holmes:

Sherlock Holmes is the great grandfather of them all. I love the fact that he is such a tricky customer, so cold, so distant. I love his friendship with Watson (which to an extent redeems him). We don’t know a lot about him – his childhood is a mystery – but he’s still a remarkable creation, the most portrayed character in cinema and the inspiration for all modern murder mysteries.

I was given the complete works when I was seventeen. I already knew that I wanted to be a writer, but the stories convinced me I should write about crime. Conan Doyle gives us a very clear picture of the character in A Study in Scarlet – although the deer stalker hat and the calabash pipe were later additions.

I could not have written the Hawthorne novels without Sherlock Holmes – I was particularly inspired by his relationship with Watson. I’m also in awe of Conan Doyle: the way he describes 19th-century London, his plotting, his imagination. He and Agatha Christie (also an admirer) are the two loadstars from which there is no escape.

Abir Mukherjee, author of The Burning Grounds: Bernie Gunther

There are so many fictional detectives whom I love, but my favourite has to be Bernie Gunther from Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir series. Bernie is a sardonic, hard-talking, hard-punching detective in the mould of Philip Marlowe. But whereas Marlowe is a gumshoe in relatively benign 1930s L.A., Bernie is a detective in Nazi Germany – a good man working within an evil system. It’s the moral compromises he makes that are so fascinating. In my head, he’s rugged, wizened, world-weary but struggling on because there’s no alternative, and he’s certainly influenced my own creation, Captain Sam Wyndham, who finds himself working for the Imperial Police in Calcutta in the 1920s because it’s slightly preferable to suicide.

I think Daniel Craig would be perfect to play Bernie on screen, bringing just the right blend of toughness and humour – an antifascist Berlin Bond. I’d pay good money to see that.

Claire Douglas, author of The New Neighbours: Miss Marple

My favourite detective has to be Miss Marple. What I love about her is how unassuming she is and how this makes her almost invisible and underestimated. Everyone she meets for the first time thinks she’s harmless, but that’s her superpower; it enables her to quietly watch and assess those around her without being noticed. I first discovered Agatha Christie’s Marple books when I was in my teens and have read them all many times since.

Denise Mina, author of The Good Liar: DCI Jane Tennison

Heavy smoking and laconic DCI Jane Tennison first appeared on our TV screens in 1990 in Prime Suspect, from the pen of the mighty Lynda La Plante, and later moved to the page. Tennison was a committed police officer navigating a compromised Met with grace and style but said what she meant and strove for justice.

Based on real-life police officer Jackie Malton, the series ran for seven series and was an international success because of the character. Tennison makes mistakes, sexily. Tennison calls out misogyny in quips. When Tennison makes the decision to have an abortion it feels like an actual dilemma. Le Plante’s writing made crime fiction feel like a place where women’s experiences – good, bad and hilarious – could be represented and spoken about. Helen Mirren’s performance made it feel stylish. She didn’t only influence me but a whole generations of crime writers.

Ross Montgomery, author of The Murder At World’s End: Jack Reacher

I’m going to say Jack Reacher, which I know is a controversial choice. “He’s not a detective!” people insist. “He’s an ex-military policeman stalking the highways with nothing but a toothbrush in his pocket and the shirt on his back!” And while that’s obviously true – the Reacher books aren’t even murder mysteries really, they’re thrillers – I love how Reacher goes about solving the books’ investigations, logical step by logical step.

That’s largely to do with how Lee Child writes: his process is driven by what the reader wants to know at any given point, which makes for an incredibly satisfying read. There’s no sudden-leaps deduction that relies on information which has been cleverly hidden from us: Reacher is always following the reader’s exact train of thought, just a touch smarter than we are, so that it genuinely feels like we could solve it too – but only if we, like Reacher, were on our hundredth coffee of the day.

Ruth Mancini, author of The Day I Lost You: George Kirrin

My favourite protagonists are strong, clever and female, and one of my earliest influences was George, one of the amateur detectives in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five books. I loved that she was headstrong and refused to be held back by the constraints and societal expectations of the day.

I was born a little later than her but as the only girl sandwiched very closely in age between two brothers, I was infuriated by some of the differing attitudes towards me, which I noticed acutely as I was growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s. My mum says I would never let the boys do something I couldn’t! My own fictional detective is Sarah Kellerman. She is a brilliant criminal defence lawyer who goes up against (mostly male) police detectives to solve crimes herself, so… yes, I think we have a theme here!

Alex North, author of The Man Made of Smoke: DI Jack Caffery

I remember being shocked the first time I read Mo Hayder’s debut novel Birdman. It wasn’t simply the gruesome crimes and the explicit, unflinching depiction of violence – although it was those things. But there also seemed to be a singular vision at work: a mixture of crime and horror with genuine, pitch-black darkness at its heart. To some extent, that is mirrored in Hayder’s protagonist, DI Jack Caffery, a tough, driven detective haunted by the unsolved abduction of his brother as a child. If anything, the sequel, The Treatment, is even more disturbing, ending with one of the bleakest moments in modern crime fiction.

That could have been the end of Caffery’s story, but five later novels – dubbed the ‘Walking Man’ series – see the DI relocate to Bristol and form a relationship of sorts with police diver Flea Marley. While the crimes remain as horrific as his London cases, these later books take Caffery into more philosophical, reflective territory. It’s hard to pick a favourite; each book is superb in its own way. For me, the most haunting is the sixth book, Poppet, in which the unsettling backdrop of a secure hospital unit provides the perfect setting for Hayder’s unique blend of chills, intrigue and – ultimately – heart.

Gytha Lodge, author of Dead to Me: Ed Exley

When it comes to smart, thorough detective work, I don’t think you can beat Ed Exley. The LA Confidential and White Jazz protagonist is a brilliant strategist, and watching his rise through the ranks over the course of two dark, violent books is both satisfying and convincing totally convincing. But he’s also at least one part antihero for every part hero. His talent for wriggling out of difficult situations and somehow coming out on top – even if that means faking it, or shooting an unarmed man – is the same talent that makes him a brilliant investigator. And is there anything more enjoyable in crime fiction than a suspect being taken to pieces by insightful, manipulative interviewing? The morally doubtful Exley teaches us that sometimes being a great detective isn’t synonymous with being a great human being.

Alex Pavesi, author of Ink Ribbon Red: Philip Marlowe

My favourite detective is the Private Investigator Philip Marlowe. Towards the start of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Good-bye, Marlowe is released from jail after a wrongful arrest. “No hard feelings?” asks the police captain. Marlowe’s response sums up his character. “No feelings at all, Captain.” Cynical and world-weary, Marlowe is resigned to whatever adventures come his way, making him the perfect chronicler of Chandler’s larger-than-life Los Angeles underworld. A keen philosopher who knows how to take a beating, his one-liners and wisecracks are so sharp he almost doesn’t need to carry a weapon. “Trouble is my business,” he tells us. “How else would I make a nickel?”

Who do you think are the best detectives in fiction? Let us know in the comments below…