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It has been said that Mickey Spillane created the ultimate lone detective in private investigator Mike Hammer. Other authors have followed in Spillane's footsteps, whether consciously or not. Perhaps unconsciously, because the kind of analytical mind the successful detective needs naturally creates a loner. The loner par excellance actually predates Mike Hammer: Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes gloried in his superior powers of "ratiocination"!

Some lone detectives are more hard-boiled than others. Sometimes they are desensitized by contact with the seamier side to life, sometimes they rise above it; but not without damage to their spirit. P. D. James' Adam Dalgleish is an intensely private and cerebral person and a published poet. He is an example of the gentleman detective. Though a member of the police, he is very much a lone operator. He is a widower and in the early books reluctant to commit to a relationship. Martha Grimes' Richard Jury is another attractive loner who has difficulty with romantic relationships. His few friendships are with people who are marginalized in some way, and he tolerates authority, in the shape of Superintendant Racer, very poorly.

James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux is another police detective who ignores the rules. As it says on Thrillingdetective.com, "...New Iberia, LA Police Detective Dave Robicheaux is the Great Lost P.I , no matter whether he wears a badge or not. For all the attention he pays to the regulations, it's a wonder he's a cop at all."

Robicheaux is more in the Mike Hammer mould in that Robicheaux is a gentleman at the core but toughened by what he has seen - in fact the Robicheaux novels can get quite violent. He is still a policeman, though, depite the fact that in one of the later books he does a stint as a P.I.

For lone, hard-boiled private eyes, you can't go much wrong with Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone. Interestingly, according to a webpage called Women of Mystery, Sharon McCone was the first fictional woman private eye. There were many early classic female sleuths, "But none were actual, professional Private Detectives, with a license and a gun; operating entirely on their own; and their stories, up till now, had never been told with the flavor of the hard-boiled detective novel." Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshowski is also a good example of the hard-boiled variety.

Try these recent mysteries with lone detectives that you may have missed:

*Greasing the Piñata : a Cape Weathers investigation by Tim Maleeny

*The Pyramid : and four other Kurt Wallander mysteries by Henning Mankell

"Here we meet Wallander the twenty-one-year-old patrolman on his first criminal investigation, Wallander the young father facing an unexpected danger on Christmas Eve, Wallander on the brink of middle age solving a case of poisoning, the newly separated Wallander investigating the murder of a local photographer, and Wallander the veteran detective discovering unexpected connections between a downed mystery plane and the assassination of a pair of spinster sisters. Over the course of these five mysteries, he comes into his own as a murder detective, defined by his simultaneously methodical and instinctive work, and is increasingly haunted from witnessing the worst aspects of an atomized society." (catalog notes)

*The King of Swords : a novel by Nick Stone

"Miami, 1981. Cocaine Central. Murder Capital, USA. A man about to face evil. A city about to catch fire.When Detective Max Mingus and his partner, Joe Liston, are called to the scene of a death at Miami's Primate Park, it looks like another routine-if slightly bizarre-investigation. That is, until two things turn up: the victim's family, slaughtered, and a partly digested tarot card in the dead man's stomach-the King of Swords.An increasingly bloody trail leads Max and Joe first to a sinister fortune-teller and her scheming pimp son, then to the infamous Solomon Boukman. Few have ever met the most feared criminal in Miami, but rumors abound of a forked tongue, voodooesque ceremonies, and friends in very high places.Against a backdrop of black magic and police corruption, Max and Joe must distinguish the good guys from the bad-and track down some answers.What is the significance of the King of Swords? What makes those who have swallowed the card go on a killing spree just before they die? And can Max find out the truth about Solomon Boukman before death's shadow reaches his own front door?The King of Swords is a feat of black magic, combining a thrilling plot, unforgettable characters, and the uniquely menacing atmosphere that made Nick Stone's Mr. Clarinet the most celebrated crime debut of 2006." (catalog notes)