Who's your favorite character in crime fiction?

[Dave Zeltserman]

My answer's here:

It will be interesting to see other people's favorites.

[Jon Loomis]

Hard to beat the caustic and sometimes poetic first person observations of Mr. Marlowe. I like Travis McGee a lot, too--and Grijpstra and De Gier. I always found Holmes insufferable, but that's probably just me.

[Christopher Valen]

Travis McGee was great, and so is Dave Robicheaux. I also like the early Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker. He phoned it in for a number of years, but I thought the last few Spenser novels were reminiscent of some of his earlier works.

[Dana King]

That's good to hear. I was a Spenser devotee for years, gave up after HUNDRED DOLLAR BABY, using almost your exact term to my wife. (He's just mailing tem in now.) I'll have to pick up one of the more recent efforts.

[I. J. Parker]

No, Holmes IS insufferable.

Grijpstra and De Gier are great. Don't care for Travis McGee and don't know Marlowe.

[minervaK]

Jane Tennison (as played by Helen Mirren)

[I. J. Parker]

Yes. Excellent role and actress.

[Eric Christopherson]

Think I've seen all of those shows. Great character. Particularly liked the final show.

[Lee Lamothe]

From Lee Lamothe. My favourite crime character is Isaac Sidel.

[Eoin Hennigan]

The Continental Op. Because he's bald and fat. In essence he shouldn't be cool but he is. Sam Spade was cool, mostly because people remember Bogart playing him. Same with Marlowe. But the Op was different. His modern equivalent could be Rebus because he's essentially an unlikeable who's very compelling and likeable purely because he's not a nice person.

[Jude Hardin]

Travis McGee.

[J. E. Seymour]

It's a toss up for me between Matt Scudder, John Keller and John Dortmunder. It largely depends on my mood.

[Albert Tucher]

The first who comes to mind is Liza Cody's Eva Wylie, who survived a feral street childhood against the odds. Another contender would be K.C. Constantine's Mario Balzic.