Welcome back to Book Break! In this video we are going to talk about some of the best classic
detectives - going all the way back to the golden age of detective fiction to some more modern
classic detectives from the 80s and 90s. I would love to know your favourite, so do leave them in
the comments below, because I can't get through everyone and I’m bound to have missed some of
your favourites - but let's dive into some of the best and most beloved classic literary detectives.
Obviously I have to kick off with Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes has got skills of deduction unlike
anyone else. They sometimes even border on the fantastic, which is unsurprising considering
author Arthur Conan Doyle's interest in all things paranormal. Sherlock Holmes features in 56 short
stories, four novels, and over 250 on-screen adaptations, so he's got to be the most famous
detective of all time. I've got a collection here of the best Sherlock stories, and you can see him
on the cover there smoking his signature pipe. So Sherlock is pretty prolific, but not far behind is
Miss Marple, one of the most famous creations of Agatha Christie. Miss Marple is an amateur
consulting detective, she is an elderly woman from a small village with an incredibly shrewd
ability to notice the tiniest of details. As well as appearing in multiple short stories,
Miss Marple can also be found in 12 of Agatha Christie's novels, including this one I've got
here: 4.50 from Paddington. You may also recognize her prototype in the novel The Murder of Roger
Aykroyd. That book features an elderly spinster named Caroline, but in the stage adaptation
Caroline's character was replaced with that of a young girl. And Agatha Christie was so upset
she was determined to give old maids their voice back, hence Miss Marple was born. Equally famous
from Agatha Christie is Hercule Poirot, though he wasn't quite as beloved by the author herself.
Agatha Christie actually described Poirot as an egocentric creep. Still, he has appeared in 33
novels, two plays, and over 50 short stories - the most famous of all of those being Murder on the
Orient Express. And Christie fans, do watch this space because a really exciting novel is coming
out next year called The Christie Affair. I have read an advanced copy and I absolutely loved it.
It is a fictionalized version of what might have happened during the period of time when Agatha
Christie went missing. It's absolutely fantastic, it feels like a real Christie-esque mystery. Watch
this space, I will put a pre-order link below. I do really recommend that one. Kosuke Kindaichi
is a newly discovered detective to most English speakers, but he has actually been famous in Japan
since the 40s. Kindaichi is a young shabby looking character who surprises everyone with his genius
for observation and logic. And the author Seishi Yokomizo is basically the Agatha Christie of
Japan, and he has written 77 mysteries for Kindaichi to solve. I've got the first one here,
the case of The Honjin Murders, which is a locked room mystery. Then there's Precious Ramotzwe
from The Number One Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander Mccall Smith. Ramotzwe is the first
female detective in Botswana. This series is a little different from the others I've mentioned
so far, in that yes there is a mystery to solve in each novel, but the novels are equally about the
adventures of the various characters. Precious Ramotzwe herself is a great character with so
much wisdom. She believes that the key to being a good detective is to know about people. Lord Peter
Wimsey is a gentleman detective who solves crimes for his own amusement. He's described as having a
vaguely foolish face so people are often rather surprised when he does actually solve the case.
He features in a series of novels and short stories, I've got 15 of the stories collected
here, and you get to actually see him change and develop as the stories go on. He's not just a
static character. So in the earlier stories we meet him as this kind of dapper man about town;
later on we see him get married to a mystery writer who has previously helped him out with some
of his cases. And towards the latest stories we actually see him as a family man with children. So
it's a really great character arc for him there. I've got two books here by Margery Allingham that
feature the detective Albert Campion, who was allegedly first created as a parody of Lord Peter
Wimsey. Again he is very posh, there are hints that he may even be part of the royal family.
He is seemingly very unintelligent and he solves crimes for his own amusement,
seeing himself as a sort of helpful Uncle Albert for those in need. So he may have started as a
parody but he did then go on to mature and develop his own identity and character. And the secret to
Albert Campion's success is the number of friends and connections he has scattered throughout the
country, including a fair number of professional criminals. His motto in life is “take a drink with
anyone, and pick your pals where you find them.” Of course I had to include Nancy Drew, a teenager
with a knack for solving mysteries. Some that she just stumbled across, some that started out
as cases on her attorney father's desk. Unlike the other detectives I've mentioned so far, Nancy Drew
doesn't just have one author. She was actually created by a publisher to be a female counterpart
to the Hardy boys. So even though the Nancy Drew books are all published under the pseudonym
Carolyn Keene, they're actually ghostwritten by a number of different authors - and as a result
of that you can see her character change quite a lot throughout the series. In the
early books that appeared in the 1930s she was actually a lot more violent and unruly
than the older, more professional version that gained popularity in the 80s - but across all the
versions she's still the same energetic, strong, bold, ambitious young woman that we know and love.
If you've been watching the Netflix show Lupin you will already be familiar with Arsene Lupin,
gentleman thief who also moonlights as a detective. Lupin is a master of disguise,
he steals from the rich, he outsmarts the police, and he is very generous to those in need. He's a
French Robin Hood and he even has a run-in with Sherlock Holmes himself. Easy Rawlins
is a great character created by Walter Mosley. He is an unlicensed private detective with no
background or training in law enforcement. In the book where we first meet him, we see him being let
go from his factory job by a racist employer and needing money to pay his mortgage. He agrees to
get involved in the hunt for a missing woman. This of course then leads him on a trail through crime
and corruption in 1940s LA and sets him nicely on a new career path. So this is classic hard-boiled
detective fiction, but also that addresses issues of racial inequality and social injustice.
So far Easy Rawlins has only been portrayed once on screen by Denzel Washington but there are
always talks of new TV shows or movies, so keep an eye out. From the 70s comes Inspector Morse, an
Oxford-based detective created by Colin Dexter. He is sullen, snobby, but extremely likable; he loves
crosswords, classical music, and real English ale. One of the longest running mysteries through the
books is what is Inspector Morse's first name? It took 20 years and 12 books before it was revealed,
so I'm obviously not going to tell you now. You'll have to read the series to find out. And then
finally, there's Dirk Gently. Dirk Gently is a modern classic detective with a twist - the twist
being that he is a time traveller. He's also a psychic, though he doesn't believe in that kind of
thing, and anyway it never helps him win any money on the races. Sherlock Holmes claims that whenever
you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the
truth. But Dirk Gently disagrees. He doesn't think you should eliminate the impossible in the first
place. Before you go, while we're talking about classic detectives, I did just want to mention
again one of my favourite non-fiction books: the Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective. This is
the true story of a very mysterious enigmatic female detective from London called Maude West.
Maud West was a master of disguise, and this book is written like a mystery itself, trying to
get to the bottom of who Maud West really was. I absolutely loved this, and I will link below to a
video that I did with the author where she got me to try out some of Maud West's best disguise tips.
Do click through and watch that video, it was a lot of fun to film. And I would love
to know your favourite classic detectives in the comments below. See you next time!