[Road to 50] Detectives

Okay so some of these are not strictly detectives but I think you can safely say they are all detective novel series. I am a sucker for hard-boiled style detective fiction - not the police procedural stuff and not the spy stuff. The kind of thing that evolved from Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe. Dames, danger and dark alleys. I like snappy dialogue and convoluted plots that don’t really make sense on close inspection. Page turners that take the genre seriously but don’t have illusions of literature.

These are multi-story series with a consistent lead character (or characters). Novels not short stories and attempting to stick to ‘detectives’ or similar. Which means some of my favourite writers are absent (no Leonard, no Ellroy) but it makes for a fun list I think.

…and no Sherlock Holmes missing isn’t a mistake.

Spenser - Robert B Parker

Fletch - Gregory Macdonald

Boone Daniels - Don Winslow

Phillip Marlowe - Raymond Chandler

Cole & Pike - Robert Crais

Parker - Richard Starks

Kenzie & Gennaro - Dennis Lehane

Nick Stefanos -George Pelecanos

Harry Bosch - Micheal Connelly

Quinn Colson - Ace Atkins

Nathan Heller - Max Allan Collins

Mike Hammer - Mickey Spillane

Lew Archer - Ross Macdonald

Easy Rawlins - Walter Mosley

Reacher - Lee Child

Sean Duffy - Adrian McKinty

Dave Robicheaux - James Lee Burke

Skink - Carl Hiassen

Dan Starkey - Colin Bateman

Atticus Kodiak - Greg Rucka