Favorite fictional detectives

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I was unsure as to where to post this as there seems to be no appropriate forum for literary aspects.

Who is you favorite fictional detective and why?

Mine are: Aloysius X.L. Pendergast, Sherlock Holmes, Mary Russell Holmes and Hercule Poirot

Reasons: Pendergast is sophisticated, has an IQ between 180 and 200, is sensitive to noise above normal conversation level, is wealthy and a polymath and highly eccentic in his dress (nearly always a black suit and tie)

Holmes is highly intelligent, a polymath and able fighter and is sophiticated but will also aquaint himself with the less-than savory caracters with equal respect.

His wife, Mary Russell, possesses an intellect to match his but a differece is that she is Jewish in her faith, an aspect I am quite delighted to see included.

Hurcule Poirot is eccentric in his overly formal dress, is quite formal in his behavior and is an individual who prefers the old ways to the modern times, a feeling I can reciprocate, but not totally.

I like on My list would be for sure these:

Sherlock Holmes

Hercule Poirot

Monk

Inspector Morse

there are a few more I just can not think of them right now.

What is a polymath?

Please don't do that to me!
For one brief moment I thought I had slipped through into an alternate universe*. I know my Conan Doyle well, and was certain he had never married. There was Irene Adler, of course, and the author Carole Nelson Douglas has written novels focussed on her.

Google is my friend. I now know of the texts to which you refer.
I'll have to get a couple out of the library and try them.

Other detectives?
Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey.



* you know you're in an alternate universe when...
...the coins in your sporran are inscribed "In Mithras we trust"

Bobby Goren on 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'. Part Sherlock Holmes, part Columbo, able to psychologise a suspect into confessing his crime yet sympathetic to people with problems like ours... maybe because he's one of us!

Monk.

A polymath is an individual who has expertise in a wide variety of areas, with many not being obviously connected to each other.

Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau, hands down

I went to the same college as Peter Wimsey and Gideon Fell!

(And probably Sherlock Holmes too, though sadly Doyle never recorded for definite which was his college.)

I must also put in a good word for G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, who has the same intellectual (and especially intuitive) brilliance as the other detectives, but is also a very good, moral and kindly man. His stories are among the few that really make you warm to the detective as a character and not just an intellect (the Sherlock Holmes stories are also in that category too, of course, though for different reasons).

Inspector Clouseau

I don't think he could be called an actual detective but he's one of my favorite Bond James Bond even though he might be more of a spy than a detective but he acts like it at times.

Gene Hunt from Life on Mars.

Vector, Espio and Charmy. They form Team Chaotix and are like Freelance detectives.

I've been an Agatha Christie fan for decades.