Your Favorite Mystery Series/Character?

[crokett]

I think mine is the Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker. Aside from the tight dialogue, Spenser is fairly well-adjusted. He isn't an alchoholic (or a recovering one), didn't have a great family tragedy, has a healthy relationship with his main squeeze and doesn't spend a lot of time in angst over himself.

[LCHIEN]

can i slip outside mystery?

C.S> Forrester's Horatio Hornblower

then, there's Leslie Chartres'
Simon Templar

[germdoc]

I love Sherlock Holmes in print, as well as portrayed by Jeremy Brett on the PBS series.

I also have a warm spot for Sam Spade, both in Chandler novels and as portrayed by Humphrey Bogart on screen.

[pelligrini]

My favorite is from a bunch of 50's detective stories by Richard S Prather; a character called Shell Scott. http://www.thrillingdetective.com/scott.html

[atgcpaul]

I like Hercule Poirot in print and on TV.

[JoeyGee]

My favorite mystery?

Women.

[docrowan]

I love Sherlock Holmes in print, as well as portrayed by Jeremy Brett on the PBS series.

I also have a warm spot for Sam Spade, both in Chandler novels and as portrayed by Humphrey Bogart on screen.

Ditto. Most of the Sherlock Holmes portrayals are horrible, and the Dr. Watson character even worse. The Jeremy Brett series got it spot on. I regularly re-read the series.

I like Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, but I prefer Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe.

I've recently got in to Perry Mason novels. I've only every watched one episode of the Raymond Burr series, but I was not impressed after reading several of the novels. They make for great light entertainment to carry with me while I'm on the road. Our local library has dozens of them, even some original editions dating back to WWII.

[RodKirby]

I think mine is the Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker. Aside from the tight dialogue, Spenser is fairly well-adjusted. He isn't an alchoholic (or a recovering one), didn't have a great family tragedy, has a healthy relationship with his main squeeze and doesn't spend a lot of time in angst over himself.

+1 I love his one-liners

"Hawk" = Laurence Fishburne?

[LarryG]

Gosh, there are so many ..

Before John D MacDonald passed away, my favorite was his Travis McGee series. Now, if pressed, I'd have to say Spenser, too. I have been reading the series since the very beginning, and it's the only one I'm still buying in hardcover (I cut all the others back to paperbacks, to conserve both money and shelf space). Parker's writing has gotten increasingly more lean over the years and the last dozen or Spensers haven't been as good as during the middle years, but I still eagerly await each new installment.

Very strong honorable mentions, however, to Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, Loren D Estleman's Amos Walker, Robert Crais's Elvis Cole, and, especially, Randy Wayne White's Doc Ford -- other fans of Travis McGee who aren't familiar with Doc Ford need to check him out. And while not quite the same sort of series, i.e. first-person private eyes, the late Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series is terrific, too.

Sidebar to Pelligrini: Shell Scott ... oh yeah. I have the complete series, in paperback (probably the only way they were ever published). And speaking of Travis McGee, I once read that MacDonald's publisher asked him to create a series character in order to cash in on the popularity of the Shell Scott books, and thus Travis McGee was born.

Sidebar to Rod: Avery Brooks played Hawk in the American TV version of Spenser, retitled slightly as "Spenser: For Hire." Robert Urich was acceptable as Spenser but Brooks was dead solid right on the money PERFECT as Hawk.

[germdoc]

I stand corrected. Chandler's character was Phillip Marlowe. Bogart did play him in "The Big Sleep".

I didn't know that Hammett was a veteran of 2 wars who was later blacklisted because of his liberal political activism. Interesting story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell_Hammett

[docrowan]

Bogart's "The Big Sleep" was a good movie, but he wasn't the right guy to play Phillip Marlowe. Marlowe is described as a big guy, probably 6' and fairly muscular.

[dlminehart]

Wow, there are so many! Not to repeat those already mentioned: Morse, the Oxford police detective by Colin Dexter. Anna Pigeon, the park service ranger by Nevada Barr. Agatha Christie's entire stable of sleuths, including Miss Marple, Tommy & Tuppance. The Chicago PI, by a woman writer, both of whose names slip my mind. Tony Hillerman's Navahos. Reminds me, I have to check out the Wednesday evening mystery book club at the local branch of my public library.

[radhak]

How come nobody mentioned Ellery Queen?

I grew up with Holmes, Spade, et al. But nobody caught my interest as much as Ellery Queen. Anybody who doesn't know and searches for that name would find books written by Ellery Queen and starring him too! Actually two authors created the character, and decided to write the books under the same name.

All the books are in third person, and the main character inside is a writer of mystery books! And most of his earlier books (all that I read) have a challenge for the reader near the end of the book (about a chapter or two of the book to go) : this claimed that the clues provided in the book till that point were all that were needed to solve the mystery, and the reader should be able to solve it, because only one solution was possible. And in the books that I have read, this was really true. Not that I could get the solution myself, because when I read them first I was an impatient teenager raring to get to the end !

Each book is a gem, but the Greek Coffin Mystery and The Door Between stand out in my mind. Try these or any others when you need a good read, you can thank me later.

Ellery Queen has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe for detective/mystery books in the US.

Note : unfortunately, Ellery Queen became so famous and well-sold that the name was 'loaned' out to be written by other Ghost writers later on. So before you take a book home, please check if it says it was written by Fred Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. These were the real authors.

[germdoc]

Bogart's "The Big Sleep" was a good movie, but he wasn't the right guy to play Phillip Marlowe. Marlowe is described as a big guy, probably 6' and fairly muscular.

I agree. I only saw the Robert Mitchum remake once a long time ago--as I recall it was OK but not great--but to me he fits the part of Marlowe more than Bogart--he has the right degree of cynicism and world-weariness.

[billwmeyer]

Mystery Novels

I also like Kinsey Milhone from the Sue Grafton Alphabet novels, but my favorite is Stephanie Plum from the Janet Evanovich Number series novels. The are well written, and hilariously funny. My favorite sub-character from her books are Stephanies Grandma Mazur.

I also liked the Kay Scarpetta Character from the Patricia Cornwalls series, but it seemed like the last ones I read were just production novels - seemed tired and rehashed.

Bill