Created by Ed McBain Né Salvatore Lombino Other pseudonyms include Evan Hunter, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Richard Marsten, Ezra Hannon,John Abbott (1926 -2005) Robert Randisi considers Calusa, Florida attorney MATTHEW HOPE to be a private eye, and that's good enough for me. When we first meet Hope in 1978's Goldilocks, he’s a transplanted New Yorker … Continue reading Matthew Hope
Tag: Lawyer Sleuth
Gethin Grey (Last Resorts Legal)
Created by John Lincoln Pseudonym of John Williams GETHIN GREY is a husband, a father, and a gambler, but it doesn’t take long in his debut, Fade to Grey (2019), to realize that the odds aren’t in his favour. The hapless founder of the Cardiff-based Last Resorts Legals, it’s obvious he’s a far cry from legal … Continue reading Gethin Grey (Last Resorts Legal)
Onni Syrjänen
Created by Tapani Bagge (1962–) ONNI SYRJÄNEN, Finnish crimewriter Tapani Bagge's not very successful lawyer, is a sad sack drunk too poor to hire a detective. So he does his own gumshoeing. He lives and works in Kerava, a small railroad town near Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Onni's office is on the first floor … Continue reading Onni Syrjänen
Cicero
Created by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) In Defense of Sextus Roscius of Ameria (aka "Pro Roscio Amerino") by Marcus Tullius Cicero, aka “Cicero,” written about 80 BC, may just be one of my favourite private eye novels. Yep, it's a speech, not a novel, but young Cicero's first major defense speech reads like a short … Continue reading Cicero
Gillian Hazeltine
Created by George F. Worts Pseudonyms include Loring Brent (1892-1967) Was GILLIAN HAZELTINE the inspiration for Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason? He was once one of the more popular lawyer/sleuth series characters from the pulps; but now almost totally forgotten. He was a long-running series character, a criminal attorney and investigator who appeared in almost thirty … Continue reading Gillian Hazeltine
“Corpus Delicti” Mort
Created by Julius W. Long (1907-1955) Defense attorney and notorious barfly CLARENCE DARROW MORT, better known by his nickname "CORPUS DELECTI," liked to drink and hang out in dive bars and dubious nightclubs--and what's wrong with that? He was a regular in the pages of Dime Detective in the mid-forties, staggering from case to case, slightly … Continue reading “Corpus Delicti” Mort
Quincy Adams Sawyer & Quincy Adams Sawyer (Junior)
Created by Charles Felton Pidgin (1844-1923) Despite over a century of misinformation and conflation, there were actually two detectives named QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER, father and son, both created by Charles Felton Pidgin, although only one was really a private investigator. The first Quincy was more of an amateur lawyer sleuth. He began his career as … Continue reading Quincy Adams Sawyer & Quincy Adams Sawyer (Junior)
Horace Rumpole
Created by John Mortimer (1923-2009 ) Down those mean streets and meaner chambers a man must waddle... Lord knows, he's not a private eye--but I wish he were. Like Philip Marlowe, HORACE RUMPOLE is "a relatively poor man... a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, … Continue reading Horace Rumpole
Arthur Beauchamp
Created by William Deverell Vancouver lawyer ARTHUR BEAUCHAMP has lots of personailty. He's alternately cranky, crafty and sly, an Quixotic idealist and a battle-hardened shrewd legal strategist, a lover of poetry and gardening, prone to spouting Latin even as he navigates a seemingly never-ending mid-life crisis, the Canadian equivalent of a certain Old Bailey hack. … Continue reading Arthur Beauchamp
Eddie Flynn
Created by Steve Cavanagh "Lawyers don’t usually question whether or not a client is telling truth. That way lies madness. You do what you have to and trust the system. So, the guilty plead guilty. The innocent fight their case and the jury decides. If a by-product of that process is the emergence of the … Continue reading Eddie Flynn