Detective

Detective

A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes". Informally, and primarily in fiction, a detective is any licensed or unlicensed person who solves crimes, including historical crimes, or looks into records.

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Famous quotes containing the word detective:

    The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective.
    Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)

    The best part of myself, that’s what you are. Do you think I’m going to leave it to the vulgar pawing of a second-rate detective who thinks you’re a “dame”? Do you think I could bear the thought of him holding you in his arms, kissing you, loving you?
    Jay Dratler, U.S. screenwriter, Samuel Hoffenstein (1889–1947)

    The detective novel is the art-for-art’s-sake of our yawning Philistinism, the classic example of a specialized form of art removed from contact with the life it pretends to build on.
    —V.S. (Victor Sawdon)