Portal:Detective
From WritersBuild
The detective story has been a popular genre in literature and the performing arts since Edgar Allan Poe gave birth to it with his stories of master French detective C. Auguste Dupin in the mid-19th century. Arthur Conan Doyle's 19th-century character Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's 20th-century creations Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are perhaps the most famous detectives in fiction. In many police drama series, detectives are depicted as being something of an elite class, with most uniformed police officers deferring to them. Most famous fictional government detectives work for local or regional agencies. In the 20th century, "hard-boiled" private detective characters such as Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and Mike Hammer became enormously popular. Elements of detective work were also featured in famous "federal" characters, such as Ian Fleming's James Bond (the first two Bond film adaptations featured more investigative work than their successors) and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Meanwhile, in comics, Dick Tracy served as the archetypal police detective.
