Detective fiction the Detective. In short, it is difficult to establish who was the first to write the English-language detective novel, as various authors were exploring the theme simultaneously. In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, arguably the most famous of all fictional detectives. Although Sherlock Holmes is not the original fiction detective (he was influenced by Poe's Dupin and Gaboriau's Lecoq), his name has become a byword for the part. Conan Doyle stated that the character of Holmes was inspired by Dr. Joseph Bell, for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like Holmes, Bell
Harry Devlin (fictional detective) woman he loved. The book was nominated for the John Creasey Memorial Dagger for the best first crime novel of 1991 (the winner being Walter Mosley). The first seven novels appeared between 1991 and 1999. Harry Devlin returned in 2008 in Waterloo Sunset, a novel which reflects the changes in his life and in his native Liverpool during the intervening years. Harry Devlin (fictional detective) Harry Devlin is a fictional detective created by the British crime writer Martin Edwards. He has appeared in eight novels and eight short stories, and was described by Marcel Berlins in ‘The Guardian’ as ‘a