10 Smartest TV Detectives

A detective who doesn’t let his obsessive compulsive disorder get in the way of cracking cases, Adrian Monk cuts an inspirational figure. He is beset by a great many phobias (312 by his own count), but never allows his condition to get in the way of his job. Even with the odds stacked against him, Monk is an invaluable asset for law enforcement. While he spends the majority of the series on “temporary suspension”, he seems to be almost single handedly responsible for cracking the city’s cases.

Monk is a man haunted by tragedy, having lost his wife in a car bomb that he long believes was meant to kill him. The loss of his wife exacerbates his neural condition, but only serves to drive his desire to combat crime in the city of San Francisco.

The detective-with-a-tricky-personal-life is a well worn trope, but the writing of Adrian Monk, as well as the award winning performance of Tony Shalhoub, makes the character especially distinctive. The particular quirks of the character could easily slip into self parody, but the deftness of the scripts and acting means this seldom happens.