Top 5 Tuesday – Top 5 Favorite Characters F-J

Fiona Griffiths from the Fiona Griffiths series

When we meet her, Fi is most junior detective on the South Wales Major Crimes unit. And she’s very aware of it—she’s very aware of a lot. She had some…very serious medical issues as a young person (I’ll let her tell you about it), and she’s really not totally over it. She keeps most of her problems to herself, her colleagues and supervisors know that her brain doesn’t work like most people’s do. It’s Fi’s unique perspective and her drive to be accepted by other detectives that provide the push for her to get to the bottom of the murder case in her first book, Talking to the Dead.

Archie Goodwin from the Nero Wolfe series

I do an annual tribute to Archie on October 23rd, so I’ll keep this short. Archie is the narrator of the Nero Wolfe mysteries. He’s Wolfe’s assistant, his legman, his majordomo. A decent P.I. in his own right, Archie’s major task is to be the reclusive genius’s conduit to the world outside. He’s got a quick wit, a pretty good punch, a strong typing speed, and a fantastic memory. I’ve been reading Archie since I was in junior high, and I can’t imagine that I won’t be reading him on my deathbed.

Harry Dresden from The Dresden Files

What can I possibly say about Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden?

Maybe I’ll let him sum things up. In the Chicago Yellow Pages (back when they were a thing), you could find this listing:

HARRY DRESDEN — WIZARD
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment

That pretty much says it all. He’s Chicago’s only Professional Wizard, a sometimes Police Consultant, a Warden of the White Council, the Winter Knight, and incurable smart-ass.

I love this guy.

Izzy Spellman from The Spellman Files

Izzy is the daughter of two P.I.s and joining the family business as a way to delay maturation. She drinks too much, she has a very spotty relationship record. Has a nose for trouble—and is a good investigator, when she puts in a little effort. Her family spends as much time investigating each other as they do whatever case they’re working. She’s funny, she’s quirky, she has a tendency to use a lot of footnotes in her narration. She’s as funny as Stephanie Plum at her best, as good an investigator as Kinsey Millhone (if not better), and an ability to find herself in trouble as often as Dennis Mitchell.

(Borrowing from Lisa Lutz’s website) “Izzy’s cynical—okay, wise—enough to realize that a primrose-covered cottage with a white picket fence is not in her future. That’s okay with her. Ever the jaded P.I., she catalogs her ex-boyfriends with calculated brevity, reducing her romantic misjudgments to curt summaries of name, age, occupation, hobbies, duration, and last words. No sooner has she met a new man that she begins composing his exit profile.”

Jupiter Jones from The Three Investigators series.

The Three Investigators series solidified my obsession with Detective Fiction, one that readers here know has not let up one bit. The First Investigator gave hope to chubby, bookish kids everywhere—the HQ he set up underneath the discarded bits and pieces in his Aunt and Uncle’s junkyard was a dream hangout, his inventiveness was something to be jealous of, and his nose for a mystery was something we all aspired to. I don’t know how many times I read every novel in that series I could find (more than was good for me), but watching Jupiter (and Pete and Bob) get into and out of trouble (mostly because of Jupiter’s intellect) was one of my favorite things in childhood.