Examples Of Hardboiled Detectives

This post supplements our article on Hardboiled Fiction.

Read the full post here: What Is Hardboiled Fiction? How To Write Hardboiled Fiction

Examples Of Hardboiled Detectives

1. Bernie Gunther from Philip Kerr’s Gunther series, starting with March Violets, is a jaded ex-cop, a victim of the purge of the Berlin police service in the Nazi takeover. He is a gumshoe in the tradition of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, an outsider and a cynic, set against the world.
2. Dave Robicheaux, a recovering alcoholic, works as a detective for the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office in James Lee Burke’s The Neon Rain, which started the Robicheaux series.
3. Dwight ‘Bucky’ Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, in James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, are patrol officers promoted to plainclothes jobs in the Warrants Division and partnered together.
4. Easy Rawlins is the most iconic African American detective in Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress.
5. Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson star in Chester Himes’s Harlem Detective series of novels, starting with A Rage in Harlem. Their names suggest the nature of their police methods and reputation.
6. Harry Bosch, in Michael Connelly’s Bosch series, starting with The Black Echo, often bends rules and works outside official channels .
7. Harry Hole, in Jo Nesbø’s books, is a genuine anti-hero who struggles with authority. He is a hard worker and a loner. He is also a full-blown alcoholic. The first book in the series is The Bat.
8. Jake Lassiter in Paul Levine’s Lassiter series, beginning with To Speak for the Dead, follows a linebacker turned hardboiled Miami lawyer.
9. Jack Taylor in Ken Bruen’s The Guards, is sacked from the Gardaí (the Irish police force) for assaulting a politician. He begins to work as a PI, taking on cases the police will not investigate.
10. Jack Reacher in Lee Child’s Reacher series, is a lone-wolf, ex-military policeman drifter who solves violent crimes with brutal efficiency. Reacher is willing to get ‘dirty’ to achieve justice. The series began with Killing Floor.
11. Joe Pickett, in CJ Box’s series starting with Open Season, is a game warden who won’t take bribes or look the other way.
12. Joe Pitt in Charlie Huston Joe Pitt’s Casebooks is a vampire and a private detective.
13. John Rebus, in Ian Rankin’s Rebus series, starting with Knots and Crosses, is a rough-edged, authority-flouting, former military man serving in Scotland’s territorial police force.
14. Kinsey Millhone, from Sue Grafton’s A Is For Alibi, is a tough-talking former cop, now a private investigator operating in the fictional California town of Santa Teresa. Kinsey writes reports during the course of her investigations in the first-person narrative.
15. Lew Archer, from Ross Macdonald’s The Moving Target, redefined the role of the American private eye and gave the crime novel a moral and psychological depth.
16. Martin Welborn and Al Mackey, in Joseph Wambaugh’s The Glitter Dome, star in a grim look at the ugly underbelly of life as a Hollywood cop.
17. Matthew Scudder, in Lawrence Block’s series starting with The Sins Of The Fathers, is an alcoholic, ex-cop, unlicensed private investigator who has recently quit the NYPD.
18. Mike Hammer from Mickey Spillane’s I, The Jury is a no-holds-barred PI whose love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer.
19. Milo Dragovich & CW Shugru are Private investigators from James Crumley’s The Mexican Tree Duck. They embody a gritty, hard-drinking, world-weary spirit.
20. Nick and Nora Charles, in Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, star in one of the formative texts of the hardboiled sub-genre. They are a dashing, cocktail-loving husband-and-wife team who solve murder mysteries.
21. Nick Stefanos in George Pelecanos’ A Firing Offense, is a bartender and private eye in Washington, DC.
22. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are PI’s from Dennis Lehane’s gritty Kenzie & Gennaro series, starting with A Drink Before The War.
23. Philip Marlowe, from Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, is a wisecracking, hard-drinking, morally upright, tough private eye.
24. Race Williams, from Carroll John Daly’s The False Burton Combs, answers to no law but his own. He is quick to kill, brutal, violent, hard-talking, yet loyal to a fault.
25. Sam Spade, in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, ‘wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocent by-stander or client’. (via Dashiell Hammett)
26. Slam Bradley in DC Comics‘ Detective comic books is a hard-bitten, tough private eye who loves working for dames.
27. Spenser, in Robert B. Parker’s The Godwulf Manuscript, is a smart-mouthed tough guy with a heart of gold. He lives by a code of honour.
28. Travis McGee, in John D. MacDonald’s series starting with The Deep Blue Good-by, will help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.
29. V.I. Warshawski, in Sara Paretsky’s series starting with  Indemnity Only, is an abrasive private investigator from Chicago. Hot-tempered, sarcastic, and fiercely self-reliant, she has the tough, cynical, yet morally driven spirit of classic hardboiled PI’s, but with a feminist perspective.

In Classic Hardboiled Fiction:

1. They narrate the story in first person.
2. They work alone to track down the suspects.
3. They are between 35 and 45 years or so.
4. They are usually deeply flawed characters.
5. They frequent shady all-night bars. They drink heavily, but are always aware and able to fight if they are attacked.
6. They always ‘wear’ a gun.
7. They are involved with a femme fatale (also known as a dame). Femmes fatales are seductive, beautiful women who bring disaster to anyone with whom they become romantically involved.
8. They are outsiders who mostly work outside the law. They will, for example, shoot criminals or take a beating if it helps them solve a case.
9. They are not ‘normal’ investigators. They are tough guys working on their own agenda with their own code of honour, and following their instincts in a way that a classic detective wouldn’t.
10. Hardboiled detectives share some traits with sympathetic villains and anti-heroes.