What is 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)

    What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.
    —P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy)

    You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.
    Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)