Path: ...!news.nobody.at!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan ) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Five Fictional Investigators With Special Abilities Date: 29 Mar 2025 02:21:19 GMT Organization: loft Lines: 93 Message-ID: References: X-Trace: individual.net Hh/7vK1TAG+DnN/fIGaeLQVRDz2ipGxvwKyoRNp/ULhfJR+oh3 X-Orig-Path: not-for-mail Cancel-Lock: sha1:IL0qo5W8mV8MwNV5eIAUvpeAdRQ= sha256:IZOvBAwNEiB47uG43aaX60N4RJjRY6dKBvQi0tDWu2E= X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Bytes: 5304 In article , Tony Nance wrote: >On 3/21/25 10:09 AM, James Nicoll wrote: >> Five Fictional Investigators With Special Abilities >> >> These sleuths bring a little something extra to the table... >> >> https://reactormag.com/five-fictional-investigators-with-special-abilities/ > >Hm ... let's see > >Working for the authorities, there's: >Kaylin Neya (Sagara's Elantra series), and >Peter Grant (Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series) > >Private Investigators would include: >Harry Dresden - (Butcher's, um, Harry Dresden series) >Harper Blaine - (Richardson - greywalker was the first one, or something >like that) > >In Glen Cook's Garrett PI series, I don't think Garrett has any special >abilities (unless surviving numerous concussions counts), but his >partner the Dead Man certainly does. > There's also: Doc Savage, by Lester Dent mostly. Doc is not strictly speaking a detective, but people do bring him cases often involving crimes (they also tend to drop dead on his doorstep, though being a woman lessens those odds). He does hold a police commission, but rarely interacts with the cops other than to tell them to do specific things. (Later in the series he falls into a more adversarial role with the police). The Mcguffins of his cases usually involve some sort of super science, though later in the so Science Detective years they start to resemble typical PI cases more. Doc is independantly wealthy and not for hire. He takes on cases which intrigue him and operates for the public good. Doc is in Batman peak physical condition, and a medical & scientific genius. Doc Sidhe by the unfortunately late Aaron Allston is the outright fantasy version of Doc Savage and lives in a 1930s fae world battling world-ending threats. He is less flustered by the ladies than his American counterpart and his aides are a bit more useful iirc. The first book is highly recommended and the second one wasn't bad. Like Savage, not a PI, but people bring him problems which tend to escalate. The Mick Oberon books by Ari Marmell. Mick is a faery exile in our Chicago. As I recall in the first two books which I read, we don't get much of his back story but he is some sort of noble in bad repute with the big Oberon (he is definitely not "that" Oberon). He works as a PI in (human) mob related cases which tend to intersect with faery more often than you might expect. And of course when he runs across anyone from home they can't believe he is actually just doing a job rather than running some shifty fae political scheme. I need to get back to these. In the Ilona Andrews "Hidden Legacy" setting, the Baylor family runs a detectie agency in an alternate Texas where magic exists and runs in familiy lines. The series focuses on several of the Baylor daughters coming of age, stepping up, finding lost pets, love and saving the world. In the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy, Skulduggery is known as "The Skeleton Detective" (because he *is* a skeleton) and does solve cases (perhaps most straight-forwardly in his latest outing), but as tends to be the case in this list, everything he (and his partner who is really the series main charcter) is involved with tends to escalate quickly. He is possibly also the least exemplary figure on this list, being pretty much an intermittently repenatent war criminal. Skulduggery has been at different times a PI, a member of the constabulary and currently head of the more or less independant Arbitor Corps. I hesitate to mention this series, because I really didn't like the way the story played out in the outing I read, but I did feel that the detective could have been good in a non-predetermined setting, so the Eddie LaCrosse books by Alex Bledsoe. Eddie is a knight for hire in a somewhat medieval setting where magic works (to some extent). He solves problems which seems to entail solving mysteries as a consequence. And I would be remiss to leave out Buck Godot "Zap-Gun For Hire" ("Why doesn't anyone believe I have professional ethics?") by Phil Foglio. In his (too few) graphic novel adventures, Buck brings justice (and frozen treats) to the explictly lawless world of New Hong Kong dealing with Pistol Packing Packrats, telepathic clones, higher-level tech and bored law-machines. Somehow he always solves the case and survives, if barely. -- columbiaclosings.com What's not in Columbia anymore..