How the 'Consulting Detective' Trope Conquered TV
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- Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin (1841–1844) is identified by University of East Anglia tutor Elspeth Latimer as the original "consultant" detective, with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes later branding himself a "consulting detective" in the 1887 story A Study in Scarlet.
- High Potential, Elsbeth, and Ludwig exemplify the current boom: Morgan Gillory is an LAPD cleaner recruited for her IQ; Elsbeth is a lawyer monitoring the NYPD; Ludwig is a puzzle-maker who impersonates his missing detective twin before being offered a job.
- The BBC has announced a new Poirot as a "handsome thirtysomething private detective," prompting Metro to declare: "We don't need a young and sexy Hercule Poirot."
- The Sheep Detectives, called "the surprise gem of this spring," is a family film in which a flock of sheep help a bumbling policeman track down their shepherd's killer.
- A Metropolitan Police detective quoted in the article says consulting detectives exist "purely in fiction," and that she was trained to rely on evidence, not intuition — the opposite of TV's "just tell" sleuths.
- Dr Lorraine Sheridan, a former behavioural investigative adviser, says real police consultants are called in for narrow specialisms — not general mystery-solving — and never have "ongoing partnerships, hot desks, or banter with detectives."
- Stuart Gibbon, a former detective now advising crime writers, says UK regional forces have introduced civilian investigators due to detective shortages, but these roles lack arrest powers and are limited to low-level offences such as shop theft or criminal damage.
Why it matters: UK forces now recruit civilian investigators out of detective shortages, yet TV versions — from BBC's newly announced young Poirot to The Sheep Detectives — remain pure fantasy to working detectives, who say the "consulting sleuth" exists "purely in fiction." The genre's appeal lies in making narrowly specialised outsiders into infallible heroes.
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