The World's Favorite Detective Tournament
The nominations have been tallied and the bracket has been built. We're ready to kick off the "World's Favorite Detective Tournament."
So you have an idea of how the bracket was built from the nominations, I counted up all the individual nominations and ranked the detectives according to how many nominations they received. The total number of detectives nominated was 243 out of almost 1300 nominations. A few people nominated didn't meet the qualifications of "detective" such as Myron Bolitar, Jack Reacher and Jane Marple. All great characters but they didn't fit into the definition of "detective" for this tournament. In the future we may do this for amateur sleuths and thriller protagonists, but for now, to keep the playing field from getting too out of control, we're going with the licensed detectives. The results netted quite a variety of detectives, representing different genders, parts of the world and time periods. I'm excited to see how this tournament goes.
Every detective that received four or more nominations made the cut. That left 13 "wild card" spots. So all of the detectives with 3 nominations were listed and then Random Number Generator chose 13 of those detectives to get the "wild card" slots.
Then I created this tournament bracket from those 64 detectives. You should be able to access it so that you can follow along each week. But, if you have any trouble, email me and I'll send you a copy of the bracket.
Here is the final list of 64 detectives who made the cut:
So you have an idea of how the bracket was built from the nominations, I counted up all the individual nominations and ranked the detectives according to how many nominations they received. The total number of detectives nominated was 243 out of almost 1300 nominations. A few people nominated didn't meet the qualifications of "detective" such as Myron Bolitar, Jack Reacher and Jane Marple. All great characters but they didn't fit into the definition of "detective" for this tournament. In the future we may do this for amateur sleuths and thriller protagonists, but for now, to keep the playing field from getting too out of control, we're going with the licensed detectives. The results netted quite a variety of detectives, representing different genders, parts of the world and time periods. I'm excited to see how this tournament goes.
Every detective that received four or more nominations made the cut. That left 13 "wild card" spots. So all of the detectives with 3 nominations were listed and then Random Number Generator chose 13 of those detectives to get the "wild card" slots.
Then I created this tournament bracket from those 64 detectives. You should be able to access it so that you can follow along each week. But, if you have any trouble, email me and I'll send you a copy of the bracket.
Here is the final list of 64 detectives who made the cut:
- Harrry Bosch (Michael Connelly)
- Elvis Cole (Robert Crais)
- John Rebus (Ian Rankin)
- Dave Robicheaux (James Lee Burke)
- Kinsey Milhone (Sue Grafton)
- Spenser (Robert B. Parker)
- Lucas Davenport (John Sandford)
- Alex Cross (James Patterson)
- Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie)
- Alan Banks (Peter Robinson)
- V.I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky)
- Philip Marlowe (Raymond Chandler)
- Lew Archer (Ross Macdonald)
- Jack Taylor (Ken Bruen)
- Kurt Wallander (Henning Mankell)
- Walt Longmire (Craig Johnson)
- Salvo Montalbano (Andrea Camilleri)
- Harry Hole (Jo Nesbø)
- Sam Spade (Dashiell Hammett)
- Joe Leaphorn (Tony Hillerman)
- Jim Chee (Tony Hillerman)
- Moe Prager (Reed Farrel Coleman)
- Adam Dalgleish (P.D. James)
- Roderick Alleyn (Ngaio Marsh)
- Charlie Parker (John Connolly)
- Lindsay Boxer (James Patterson)
- Guido Brunetti (Donna Leon)
- Jonathan Stride (Brian Freeman)
- Erlendur (Arnaldur Indridason)
- Ray Dudgeon (Sean Chercover)
- Reginald Wexford (Ruth Rendell)
- Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout)
- Andy Dalziel (Reginald Hill)
- Tom Thorne (Mark Billingham)
- Matthew Scudder (Lawrence Block)
- John Ceepak (Chris Grabenstein)
- Travis McGee (John D. MacDonald)
- Easy Rawlins (Walter Mosley)
- Jesse Stone (Robert B. Parker)
- Bernie Gunther (Philip Kerr)
- John Corey (Nelson DeMille)
- Will Trent (Karin Slaughter)
- Virgil Flowers (John Sandford)
- Lincoln Rhyme (Jeffery Deaver)
- Carson Ryder (Jack Kerley)
- Eve Dallas (J.D. Robb)
- Patrick Kenzie (Dennis Lehane)
- Kate Shugak (Dana Stabenow)
- Endeavour Morse (Colin Dexter)
- Cork O'Conner (William Kent Krueger)
- Sam Purdy (Stephen White)
- David "Kubu" Bengu (Michael Stanley)
- Lincoln Perry (Michael Koryta)
- Pepe Carvalho (Manuel Vazquez Montalban)
- Armand Gamache (Louise Penny)
- Tess Monaghan (Laura Lippman)
- Tom Brant (Ken Bruen)
- Charlie Resnick (John Harvey)
- Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg (Fred Vargas)
- Aloysius Pendergast (Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child)
- Skin Kadash (Bill Cameron)
- Precious Ramotswe (Alexander McCall Smith)
- Ellie Hatcher (Alafair Burke)
As promised, there is a contest to go along with the tournament. The contest is open to anyone, anywhere! There will be a grand prize winner, a first runner up and a second runner up. Aside from bragging rights, each winner will be given their choice of a signed detective novel that I have in the prize cache. The grand prize winner will also be given a second selection of a novel from the general prize cache.
So what do you have to do to enter, you ask? You have to predict the results of the tourney. On Friday I will post a form here on the blog and each person may enter once. You will be required to predict the Elite Eight, the Final Four, the Championship and the "World's Favorite." The person(s) closest to the actual results will be the grand prize winner.
All prediction forms must be completed and submitted by 11:59p.m. (Eastern) Monday, March 8th. (Voting for Week 1 will begin on Monday, March 8th as well.)
If you have questions, I'd love it if you would post them in the comments in case other folks have those same questions. On Friday when I post the entry form, I'll also post links to each of the detectives so you can learn a little more about any that you might not know.
If you have questions, I'd love it if you would post them in the comments in case other folks have those same questions. On Friday when I post the entry form, I'll also post links to each of the detectives so you can learn a little more about any that you might not know.
I hope you'll all participate and I hope you'll pass the word along so others will participate as well. Let's get ready to rumble y'all!
29 comments:
What a great idea, Jen! But I can't believe two of my favorites, Patrick Kenzie and Moe Prager, have a potential second-round match-up. Someone's going home too early!
OOoooh - this is FUN!
I love this idea, Jen - the bracket thingie is brilliant!
How do you keep coming up with all this wonderfully clever ideas?! I'm very impressed.
Can't wait for the voting to begin!
I'll be sure to post about this on the blog today!
Hey, I hear ya Alan...some of my favs are facing off in the FIRST round! So many great detectives!!
Oh Kaye, I'm just good at "borrowing" other ideas! ;) This is going to be great fun, though.
Thanks for the enthusiasm and help spreading the word everyone! I'm hoping this is fun for everyone!!
Elvis has to face Joe Leaphorn right off the bat? You're killin' me, Jen!
My word, you have done a lot of work. I think I understand what will happen and will check back on Friday to see how to enter. Very creative!!
Skin would pretend to not care, but secretly he is thrilled to have made the cut, even if he doesn't make it out of the first round. :)
Were you just trying to start a family feud by potentially pitting Dave Robicheaux against Ellie Hatcher?? Heh!
Too many of my favorites are squaring off! I'm going to have major guilt for voting one over the other!
This is going to be a blast. Thanks for the fun Jen!
Some eyebrow-raising first round match-ups: Wallender / Hole; Dalgliesh / Rebus; and, especially V.I. Warshawski v. Kinsey Milhone in the first round -- who is killing off the great female detectives of America?
This looks fun
At least two of my favorites are going home week one, and one didn't even make the cut. (I'm really surprised David Hewson's Nic Costa didn't even make the tourney)
What's going to be fun is the contrast between voting for who I like and *want* to advance vs. filling out the bracket based on who I think *will* advance. Good stuff Jen!
You guys, it is so much fun to see the enthusiasm already. And APMonkey, I know exactly what you mean! That is so true. I'm glad I'm not entering this contest!
Woo Hoo! The two I suggested are within the top 10 listed!!! I'm on cloud Nine...I love these "guys"!
Thanks Jen!
This is much better than the basketball tourney....for at least I know who these players "are"! ; }
Hugs
Darby
darbyscloset at yahoo dot com
Here's a question: You say "The person(s) closest to the actual results will be the grand prize winner."
So does that mean there may be more than one grand prize winner (and hence, grand prize)? Or if there's a tie at the top, will you draw a name, or have some other sort of tie breaker?
If there is more than one grand prize winner, then each winner will get the advertised prize unless there are more winners than I can supply prizes for. Everyone will get something, but if I run out of signed books then I may have to do a drawing. I'm hoping that doesn't end up being the case, though.
Woo Hoo! So glad to see several of my favorites here ;-)
Walt Longmire or Alan Banks going home after the first round? DUDE! ;-)
Great, thanks for the answer. That's clear. :)
This is wonderful - finally, a "March Madness" that I care about! ;-) Even better, I could wind up learning about some characters I haven't had a chance to read about yet. I look forward to seeing how the voting plays out.
This is fun.Plus,i love being introduced to new detectives.
Jen - What decides if a detective advances? Is it the based on the majority of the entries, or your decision, or chance?
Hi Mike,
Starting on Monday, a voting form will be posted. Anyone can vote and the voting will be open until Friday. Then, based on the number of votes in each face-off, the higher vote getter advances.
So you can rally voters for your favorites if you so choose!
Is that what you were asking?
This is NOT going to be easy, especially when you get into classics versus contemporary; international versus US. I've narrowed it down to my final four.
When The popular comment layout is common, so it is easily recognized scanning to post a comment. If the comment section is in a different format, then I am going to spend more time trying to decipher what everything means.
study from home
If I were to wager a guess at why, I’d say that users don’t “browse” forms. The interaction style users engage in with forms is different, and requires its own study and design best practices. This is a very interesting post, and the comments are also fantastic to read. I’ll have poses to have a little re-think about my own contact form on our new website, as this some interesting questions!
study home
I'm surprised Lisbeth Saunders didn't make the cut. She might not be a full fledged detective, but she does do quite a bit of sleuthing. She is also my favorite female character.
Lisbeth isn't eligible for this contest...no amateur sleuths were. They had to be detectives by trade.
I'm just glad to see that my three favorite detectives, Harry Hole (#1! #1!), Jack Taylor, and Patrick Kenzie were listed.
Now if I could just figure out how the heck to do those brackets, I would play. Maybe I'll ask one of the jocks at work who does fantasy football. Great idea -- I'm new to this blog - my friend forwarded it to me when he came across this contest. Thanks for doing it!
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