# Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot?



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

....................................................


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

*Nero Wolfe*!










He is just the thickest investigator...

/ptr


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Holmes. Both are narcissists with anti-social tendencies, but Holmes is far more brilliant and interesting. Plus, and here's a clue, he has better mysteries to solve. Poirot has the same story set in a different place, or on a cruise ship, or on a train, or a big country pile. 12 friends/acquaintances meet, one of 'em gets bumped off, they all end up in the library with Hercule re-telling the tale and leading us on, etc. 

Once the murder took place in the same village that Miss Marple was visiting and they took turns leading their eleven suspects into the local library to reveal their respective killers.

Holmes deals with a lot more, and his stories are just so much better, for me. But the best detective? Seriously? Lieutenant Columbo. He's the one. Doesn't miss a thing. Like that episode where he caught the guy who'd dressed his victim in gym gear - and tied the laces wrongly. Oh, you silly boy, I hissed at the telly when that was revealed...


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Oh i don't know... Seen so much Poirot that i have gone tired of his style. My vote goes to Sherlock Holmes. Big fan of the new british adaption "Sherlock"









And i love the two hollywood movies with Robert Downey Jr.

Great fun


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## BlazeGlory (Jan 16, 2013)

I liked Jessica Fletcher. I called the show about her "Murder She Caused." It seemed that no matter where she went someone wound up getting killed. You would think that her friends would have stopped inviting her to their various functions after the first ten or so murders.


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## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

I rather prefer Miss Marple or quite possibly Tess Monaghan. :lol:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Holmes. He faced (or courted) a greater amount of personal danger and had a far more complex and interesting personality. Because of the Victorian England timeline there's also a sinister, almost Gothic, atmosphere to many of the Holmes stories whereas Poirot's between-the-wars England is essentially a P.G. Wodehouse novel with a few murders thrown in.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> ...a P.G. Wodehouse novel with a few murders thrown in.


Wouldn't a Wodehouse written Murder Mystery series have been a hoot? More refined then anything Christie and not as starchy as Conan Doyle.. 

/ptr


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Christie was perhaps better at writing clever technical solutions, but Conan Doyle was way better at atmosphere and characterization, so Holmes gets my vote (plus he's a talented musician and a Wagnerite). Of Christie's, I prefer the Marple mysteries. Jane's just a lot more likeable than Poirot.

Re: the recent Sherlock adaptations. Cumberbatch's is brilliant, the first Downey Jr. movie was acceptable and the second was awful. It might have been better had they let Holmes actually solve anything aside from the Mystery of How To Punch These Guys Really Hard in the Face.

Honourable mentions to Nero Wolfe (the son of Sherlock and Irene Adler according to non-canon speculation), John Dickson Carr's Lord Henry Merrivale and Dr. Gideon Fell (essentially the same character) and Lord Peter Wimsey (who does the _real_ "Bertie Wooster solves mysteries" act).


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

ptr said:


> Wouldn't a Wodehouse written Murder Mystery series have been a hoot? More refined then anything Christie and not as starchy as Conan Doyle..
> 
> /ptr


Indeed, and even better if:

a) Gussie Fink-Nottle was one of the victims and

b) it was the butler who did it.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

For Holmes, my go-to version is Jeremy Brett. But I like the Cumberbatch reboot. Not a fan of the Jackie Chanesque Downey version.

For Columbo, Peter Falk!


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

BlazeGlory said:


> I liked Jessica Fletcher. I called the show about her "Murder She Caused." It seemed that no matter where she went someone wound up getting killed. You would think that her friends would have stopped inviting her to their various functions after the first ten or so murders.


Or at least she'd be a suspect!


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Kieran said:


> For Holmes, my go-to version is Jeremy Brett. But I like the Cumberbatch reboot. Not a fan of the Jackie Chanesque Downey version.


According to a tough in _The Sign of Four_, Holmes was an excellent amateur boxer, so props to the filmmakers for remembering that. Replacing his cocaine with alcohol, though? For shame...


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Stop!









Hammer Time


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Favourites:









Holmes/Brett

and









Dalziel & Pascoe !

*Morse* is very good too, though I really wish they´d made his classical music taste a little more edgy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sherlock, of course, because I read the complete Sherlock Holmes as a kid, and they are for many, just iconic.

Poirot is to me so mannered, that I suppose it is a very light form of entertainment, but not what I'm wanting from "detective."

---- off point, but memory was triggered to these within the genre I do really like.
In the fun, bizarre kind of real vein, *Bernie Rhodenbarr, anybody?*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Rhodenbarr

I generally prefer the darker, somewhat more realistic sorts of Detective:
*the Martin Beck series, penned by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö*. These are quiet, terrific, and more like real policework, plodding, flushing out suspects they know really had nothing to do with the crime, stirring things up, which often leads to a near accidental final stumbling upon the actual perpetrator. Multiple characters, progressively well-developed throughout the series. Some have the same effect as a great Hitchcock film, i.e. three quarters of the way through you're in a slight sweat, without any obvious big events to thrill... you've been keyed up subtly and quietly by a master 

The very very real and truly nasty ~ James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential)

The equally dark Ruth Rendall (where no one in the story is at all nice... )

Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley, etc.)

The brain curdling psychological depths of Commissaire Maigret, Georges Simenon


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I knew that Holmes would win, and I agree with almost all the comments made so far.
What I like of Poirot is the simplicity of the character. It's simply a mannered detective. Sometimes, I feel him as more "human" in his banality. Holmes is more a literary character to me.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I don't really care for either of them, although Holmes is at least amusing.

I'll stick with Roger Smith of _The Big O_. Though I am looking forward to reading Paul Auster's _New York Trilogy_, that seems like an interesting one.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

ahammel said:


> Christie was perhaps better at writing clever technical solutions, but Conan Doyle was way better at atmosphere and characterization, so Holmes gets my vote (plus he's a talented musician and a Wagnerite). Of Christie's, I prefer the Marple mysteries. Jane's just a lot more likeable than Poirot.
> 
> Re: the recent Sherlock adaptations. Cumberbatch's is brilliant, the first Downey Jr. movie was acceptable and the second was awful. It might have been better had they let Holmes actually solve anything aside from the Mystery of How To Punch These Guys Really Hard in the Face.
> 
> Honourable mentions to Nero Wolfe (the son of Sherlock and Irene Adler according to non-canon speculation), John Dickson Carr's Lord Henry Merrivale and Dr. Gideon Fell (essentially the same character) and Lord Peter Wimsey (who does the _real_ "Bertie Wooster solves mysteries" act).


John Dickson Carr---my goodness that takes me back---BRILLIANT.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I like Sherlock Holmes best as I grew up reading his stories & I love the Victorian ambience. But I like Agatha Christie too, and indeed there are many brilliant detective writers. I must put in a plea for Edmund Crispin - The Moving Toyshop & others - and his literary Professor Gervase Fenn who drives a wayward sports car called Lily Christine. Crispin - in real life the jazz critic & composer Bruce Montgomery - sends up the 1930s detective boom brilliantly.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I don't know, I love David Suchet as Poirot; those are some of my favorite British mysteries  I haven't read or seen much of Sherlock Holmes, though I have been watching the new TV series (the one set in modern times) and I have to say I do like it.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> Indeed, and even better if:
> 
> a) Gussie Fink-Nottle was one of the victims and
> 
> b) it was the butler who did it.


Ha! I love old Gussie. Though his mystery would have to involve newts. And if Gussie were around, a Spinoza-loving, immaculately coiffed butler would have definitely done it and recorded it for posterity in the book at the Junior Ganymede Club.

As to the OP, I'm a Sherlock fan all the way. He was always a step ahead of everyone, and people didn't have to die before he sprang into action. Poirot is too fussy for my taste. "I never miss anything." Hogwash. But to his credit, BBC gave him a nice saxophone-laced theme song.


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

Btw, Sherlock please. He is the reason for this:


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

It's a false dichotomy because Poirot is simply a fictional character!

How can one compare the product of 1930's fiction with one of the real heroes of the Victorian Age? 


Drat - anybody got any hints about removing tongue from cheek when firmly stuck?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Holmes, because he enjoyed Wagner too. 

Just kidding, that's not the real reason of course. I like his personality and his stories much more than those about Poirot, that's all.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Interestingly, there is humour in both, but the relationship of Watson & Holmes & the possibility of irony & humour resulting from it is much more cleverly conceived than the relationship of Poirot & Captain Hastings.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Holmes, because he enjoyed Wagner too.


"There's a good deal of German music on the programme . . . It is introspective, and I want to introspect." Yeah, I can relate to Holmes.


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## Ryan (Dec 29, 2012)

I would say Judge Dredd


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

I'll go for Doctor Who


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I'll go for Doctor Who


Surely that should have a question mark as in Dr Who?


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Taggart said:


> Surely that should have a question mark as in Dr Who?


Yes, that was remiss of me, maybe I need a regeneration too?


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