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I was wondering if any mystery books had teachers or college professors as detectives or private investigators and a friend, rosamundi, mentioned Amanda Cross in a post.
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was the author of fourteen Kate Fansler mysteries, written under the name Amanda Cross. Fansler, like Heilbrun, was an English professor. Heilbrun kept her second career as a mystery novelist secret in order to protect her academic career, until a fan discovered "Amanda Cross"'s true identity through copyright records. The novels, all set in academia, often were an outlet for Heilbrun's view on feminism, academic politics, and other political issues. Death in a Tenured Position (set at Harvard University) was particularly harsh in its criticism of the academic establishment's treatment of women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
I couldn’t think of any others. My friend also mentioned a book she was reading where the PI sometimes drives a cab.
A Trouble of Fools - Linda Barnes –
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
The first book in the Carlotta Carlyle series! Linda Barnes's A Trouble of Fools is the book that introduced readers to ex-Boston cop and PI Carlotta Carlyle, who knows trouble when she sees it like the old Irish lady offering a grand in cash to find her brother...TROUBLE…
Since being bounced from the Boston police for insubordination after six years of service, Carlotta Carlyle has set up shop as a private investigator ready to deal with anything from lost pets to substantially grander larcenies. Though Carlotta, a six-foot-tall, redheaded ex cop, part-time cabbie, and neophyte private eye, works out of her home, it's rare that clients stop by unannounced…
Then, I started thinking about other mystery heroes in books and on TV and I had fun remembering all the different careers they had before they became detectives or while they were investigating crimes. I know that I missed many detectives and the wikipedia list below missed some, too, so I hope my readers will remind us of those we missed. Are there any other teachers?
Ellis Peter’s Cadfael was a soldier and then a monk.
Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey, in western England, in the first half of the 12th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Mrs. Pollifax is older, but gets the job done.
Mrs. Emily Pollifax is the heroine of a series of comic spy-mystery novels by Dorothy Gilman. Mrs. Pollifax is a widow and senior citizen who decides one day to leave her comfortable apartment in New Brunswick, New Jersey and join the CIA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Miss Marple is also older.
Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple has never worked for her living and is of independent means, although she benefits in her old age from the financial support of Raymond West, her nephew (A Caribbean Mystery,1964). She demonstrates a remarkably thorough education, including some art courses that involved study of human anatomy through the study of human cadavers. In They Do It with Mirrors (1952), it is revealed that, in her distant youth, Miss Marple spent time in Europe at a finishing school. She is not herself from the aristocracy or landed gentry, but is quite at home amongst them; Miss Marple would probably have been happy to describe herself as a gentlewoman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Lilian Jackson Braun’s Jim Qwilleran was a newspaperman.
Qwill joined the service. It is never explicitly stated which war he fought in, but it is likely that he served during Operation Torch during World War II, since several times throughout the series he uses a curse he learned while in North Africa. He came out of it with an injured knee and so could not have the career in baseball he always desired. So he went to college, participated in some acting, but found it was journalism that he had a natural knack for.
In this light he decided to become a journalist, and encountered great success in this field. He primarily reported on crime for major newspapers, and even wrote a book, "City of Brotherly Crime" (a best-seller).
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Lawrence Block has Scudder, but the stories I like best are about his gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr.
Bernie Rhodenbarr is a New York City-based thief who excels in lockpicking and breaking and entering, and who is addicted to the thrill it provides. He served time in prison in his youth, and since then has resolved to avoid getting caught again.
Bernie's burglary operations are usually well-planned and tidily executed, from the initial surveillance of the target site to the escape route afterwards.
However, during the course of some of these burglaries Bernie encounters a dead body, usually just before the police arrive to investigate a called-in murder. Thus begins the plotline of a typical Bernie Rhodenbarr novel, in which Bernie undertakes to solve the murder in order to clear his name. His investigative techniques include not only interviewing the victim's associates, but visits (sometimes involving illegal entry) to their homes to identify (and occasionally plant) evidence.
Beginning with The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling, Bernie has become the owner / operator of Barnegat Books, a used bookstore in Greenwich Village that he purchased from its retiring owner and partially funds through the take from his occasional burglary activities. Prior to the novel The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (to explain a publishing hiatus in the series) it was revealed that the bookstore was actually making a profit, before its building's landlord changed and the new owner raised the rent catastrophically. Bernie has since managed to buy the building, and now uses his burglary take to pay off his mortgage. The bookstore also houses a cat, a gift from Bernie's friend Carolyn, whom Bernie named Raffles after the fictional gentleman thief.
Which reminds me of the old TV show, It Takes a Thief:
It Takes a Thief is an American action-adventure television series that aired on ABC for two and a half seasons between January 9, 1968, and March 24, 1970. It starred veteran movie actor Robert Wagner in his television debut as sophisticated thief Alexander Mundy, who works for the U.S. government in return for his release from prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
John Dunning’s Cliff Janeway is a book seller, too. He knows about expensive books.
Booked to Die
Bookman’s Wake
Bookman’s Promise
Sign of the Book
Bookwoman’s Last Fling
Kate Ross' Julian Kestrel is a trend-setting dandy, similar in influence to Beau Brummel, who takes up detection as a response to boredom with the emptiness of society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsy is an archetype for the British gentleman detective.
Born in 1890 and aging in real time, Wimsey is described as having at best average height with straw-coloured hair, a beaked nose, and a vaguely foolish face. (Reputedly his looks were patterned after those of academic Roy Ridley.) He also possesses considerable intelligence and athletic ability, evidenced by his playing cricket for Oxford University while earning a First and by creating a spectacularly successful publicity campaign for Whifflet cigarettes while working for Pym's Publicity Ltd. and still, at 40, being able to turn three cartwheels in the office corridor, stopping just short of the boss's open office door (Murder Must Advertise). Wimsey sometimes affects a slightly silly behaviour, so that people underestimate him.
Among Lord Peter's hobbies, apart from criminology, is collecting incunabula. He is an expert on matters of food (especially wine) and male fashion, and on classical music. He is quite good at playing Bach's works for keyboard instruments on a piano he treats even more carefully than his books, wines, and cars. One of Lord Peter's cars is a 12-cylinder ("double-six") 1927 Daimler four-seater, which (like all his cars) he calls "Mrs. Merdle" after a character in Little Dorrit (by Charles Dickens) who "hated fuss".
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Harlen Coben’s Myron Bolitar is a sports agent.
Lovejoy is an antiques dealer. Jonathan Gash wrote the books, but the TV series stars Ian McShane as Lovejoy.
Lyn Hamilton’s Lara McClintoch is also an antique shop owner.
The Xibalba Murders (1997)
The Maltese Goddess (1998)
The Moche Warrior (1999)
The Celtic Riddle (2000)
The African Quest (2001)
The Etruscan Chimera (2002)
The Thai Amulet (2003)
The Magyar Venus (2004)
The Moai Murders (2005)
The Orkney Scroll (2006)
The Chinese Alchemist (2007)
Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody is an Egyptologist.
The Amelia Peabody series is a series of mystery novels written by Elizabeth Peters featuring Egyptologist Amelia Peabody Emerson, for whom the series is named. The novels are intended as a blend of parody (mostly of the adventure novel, such as written by H. Rider Haggard), mystery, and comedy. The series spans a thirty-eight year period from 1884 to 1923 and is primarily set in Egypt, with some installments including action in England and Gaza.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
M. C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin was a PR agent.
Agatha Raisin is a frustrated, yet endearing, middle-aged public-relations agent who moved from London to Carsely in the Cotswolds when she sold her public-relations firm and took early retirment. She solves murders in each of the earlier books, but in the fifteenth book Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance (2004) Agatha sets up her own detective agency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak was an investigator for the Anchorage District Attorney's Office.
Lee Child’s Jack Reacher was an Military Policeman, a Major in the Army before he retired and became a wanderer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Charles Todd’s Ian Rutledge worked for Scotland Yard, then was a soldier in WW I, and returned to the Yard after the war.
Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury also works for Scotland Yard.
Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Wolfe Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
P. D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh holds the rank of Commander in the Metropolitan Police Service at New Scotland Yard in London, although he is introduced in Cover Her Face, as a Detective Chief Inspector. He is an intensely cerebral and private person. He writes poetry, a fact about which his colleagues are fond of reminding him. Several volumes of his poetry have been published.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Falco is another poet.
Lindsey Davis’s Marcus Didius Falco was a Roman soldier in Britain in the Legio II Augusta, but was "invalided out" in 60 following the legion's disgrace in the Boudiccan Revolt.
Falco is an amateur poet. He has written satires, some odes, and some epigrams. He has also written the play The Spook Who Spoke, meant to be understood as a precursor of Hamlet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight
Hamilton's novels have won numerous awards. His very first book, A Cold Day in Paradise, won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin's Press Award for Best First Mystery by an Unpublished Writer. After it was published, the novel went on to win the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best First Novel, the only first novel to win both awards.
That book introduced Alex McKnight, an ex-cop now making a living renting cabins in the small town of Paradise in Michigan's isolated Upper Peninsula, who becomes a reluctant private detective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Tony Hillermans’s Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are Navajo Tribal policemen. Joe retires, but keeps his hand in the game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Precious Ramotswe is the first female private investigator in Botswana. Her beloved father dies and leaves her some cattle and she uses the money to start up her agency.
Jaqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobb was a nurse in WW I
Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford is also a nurse in WW I.
Castle is an author in the TV show by that name. Richard Castle is played by Nathan Fillian.
Harry Kemelman’s detective is a rabbi.
The Rabbi Small series began in 1964 with the publication of Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, which became a huge bestseller, a difficult achievement for a religious mystery, and won Kemelman a 1965 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The Rabbi Small books are not only mysteries, but also considerations of Conservative Judaism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January is a pianist and surgeon.
The series beginning with 'A Free Man of Color' follows Benjamin January, a brilliant, classically educated free colored surgeon and musician living in New Orleans during the belle epoque of the 1830s, when New Orleans had a large and prosperous free colored demimonde. January was born a slave but freed as a young child and provided with an excellent education; he is fluent in several classical and modern languages and thoroughly versed in the whole of classical Western learning and arts. Although trained in Paris as a surgeon, he has returned to Louisiana to escape the memory of his dead Parisian wife. As he is a very dark-skinned black man, in Louisiana he cannot find work as a surgeon. Instead, he earns a modest living by his exceptional talent and skill as a musician.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon is a Park Ranger.
Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter. She finds those who skipped out on going to court and returns them.
A few from the wikipedia list (I have mentioned some of these and you may elaborate on your favorites, too):
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Great detectives
Richard Castle – Andrew W. Marlowe
Alex Delaware – Jonathan Kellerman
Nancy Drew – Carolyn Keene
C. Auguste Dupin – Edgar Allan Poe
Jessica Fletcher – Murder, She Wrote
The Hardy Boys – Franklin W. Dixon
Miss Marple – Agatha Christie
Perry Mason – Erle Stanley Gardner
Travis McGee – John D. MacDonald
Ellery Queen – Ellery Queen
Lord Peter Wimsey – Dorothy L. Sayers
Private Investigators
Lew Archer – Ross Macdonald
Vincent Calvino – Christopher G. Moore
Elvis Cole – Robert Crais
Cordelia Gray - P.D. James
Mike Hammer – Mickey Spillane
Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Laura Holt – Remington Steele
Thomas Magnum – Magnum, P.I.
Philip Marlowe – Raymond Chandler
Kinsey Millhone- Sue Grafton
Adrian Monk – Monk
Hercule Poirot – Agatha Christie
Easy Rawlins – Walter Mosley
Jim Rockford ¬¬– The Rockford Files
Sam Spade – Dashiell Hammett
Spenser – Robert B. Parker
Amos Walker - Loren D. Estleman
V.I. Warshawski - Sara Paretsky
Nero Wolfe – Rex Stout
Police detectives
Roderick Alleyn – Ngaio Marsh
Harry Bosch – Michael Connelly
Charlie Chan – Earl Derr Biggers
Inspector Clouseau – Pink Panther
Lieutenant Columbo – Columbo
Sergeant Cuff - Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
Sonny Crockett – Miami Vice
Adam Dalgliesh – P. D. James
DCS Christopher Foyle – Foyle's War
George Gideon – John Creasey
Lt. Theo Kojak – Kojak (played by Telly Savalas)
Jules Maigret – Georges Simenon
Inspector Morse – Colin Dexter
Jesse Stone – Robert B. Parker
Dick Tracy - Chester Gould
Forensic specialist
Kay Scarpetta – Patricia Cornwell
Historical
Brother Cadfael – Edith Pargeter
Judge Dee – Robert van Gulik
Sister Fidelma – Peter Tremayne
Gordianus the Finder – Steven Saylor
Marcus Didius Falco – Lindsey Davis
Li Kao – Barry Hughart
I need to add the stories by Candice Robb to this list.
Apothecary Rose
Lady Chapel
Nun’s Tale
King’s Bishop
Riddle of St. Leonards
Gift of Sanctuary
Spy for the Redeemer
Science-fiction and Fantasy
Rick Deckard – Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Harry Dresden – Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files
Garrett – Glen Cook
Dirk Gently – Douglas Adams
Gil Hamilton – Larry Niven
Thursday Next – Jasper Fforde
Sam Vimes – Terry Pratchett
Miles Vorkosigan – Lois McMaster Bujold
Elijah Baley – Isaac Asimov
Elijah ("Lije") Baley is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series. He is the main character of the novels The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, and of the short story "Mirror Image". He is seen in flashbacks several times and talked about frequently in Robots and Empire, which is set roughly 200 years after his death. Besides Asimov's works he appears in the Foundation's Friends story "Strip-Runner", by Pamela Sargent and, "Isaac Asimov's 'The Caves Of Steel'" poem by Randall Garrett.
He is a plainclothesman, a homicide detective in the New York City Police Department 3,000 years in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
There are others who are lawyers and judges who are not on the list. Who is missing? Who are your favorites?
Diaries of the Week
AIDS Walk Austin - cuts, cuts & more cuts+
by anotherdemocrat
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Write On! Differentiating Characters+
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 48: Mozart Piano Concerto #17 in G.+*
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
plf515 has a book talk on Wednesday mornings early.
sarahnity’s list of DKos authors
http://www.dailykos.com/...