My Favorite Mystery Hunk

RHYS BOWEN:  We started this week with sex and we're going to end it with sex too. A veritable orgy!
As I mentioned on Monday I get loads of requests for "More Darcy, please." and my editor actually said once, when we were having a conference, "Do you think Darcy could take his shirt off occasionally?"
I have noticed with this series that my readership has broadened to include many young women, many romance readers so I'm conscious that I'm now writing for those readers as well as the die-hard mystery fans. Besides, as I've confessed before, I'm a sucker for a good romance.

So for our Saturday quiz today I thought I'd throw it open and ask : Who is your favorite mystery hunk? Or if you aren't exactly into hunks which male character in a mystery do you find most attractive?

LUCY BURDETTE: I don't care so much about looks, I like brooding loners who'll go way out on a limb for the underdog and downtrodden. Think Michael Connelly's Detective Bosch or Steve Hamilton's Alex McNight. I was also very, very fond of my own detective in the advice column mysteries, Jack Meigs.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, hmm, I think I'm in trouble. My thoughts go immediately, not to mystery, but to cross genre books, mystery/fantasy/horror.  Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, Ben Aaronvitch's Peter Grant.  Maybe I need to broaden my mystery reading.

HANK PHILIPPI RYAN: Ah, I'm also not a hunk girl. The opposite, really. Morse, but you know that. And young Morse! I admit, like Roberta, to having a bit of a thing for my new character Jake Brogan (!)...but that makes sense, right? He's "my hero," right?  I loved Roderick Alleyn, and even Peter Wimsey.

JAN BROGAN - Jake Brogan?? Hmmm....he might be a relation.  I'm like Debs, I have not fallen for any mystery sleuths. In fact, I made the mistake of listening to a Det. Bosch mystery on audio and the narrator's voice irritated me so he is ruined for me forever.  I tend to go for alpha males, so I'm a Rhett Butler/ Augustus Macrae kind of girl.  I never trust new age sensitive guys.

 I'm still hanging on to my crush for Herman Melville, so in terms if fictional equivalents,  my hunk must be Ishmael.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Don't you mean, "Call my hunk Ishmael?"

Lucy and Hank, an editor once told me that in order to write a character that others will fall in love with, the author needs to be a little in love with him or her as well. So yes, I will also confess I have a bit of a thing for Russ Van Alstyne. I love the idea of the rugged northwoods guy who can fix up a house, cook a meal and take down a bad guy, so I crush hard on Alex McKnight, Cork O'Conner (in William Kent Kruger's wonderful series) and Joe Gunther (by New England's own Archer Mayer.)

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Oh thank goodness...I thought you meant mystery authors. Then I'd really be in trouble. I'm a Reacher girl. He comes in, kicks butt and then leaves.  Not a lot of talk and he won't want to move in. I like that.

JULIA: Oh, oh, yes. Seconding Reacher. He's so...competent. And he respects women as equals without even thinking about it. That's very sexy.

HANK: Reacher, Reacher. Yes, yes! Why is that, you know? It shouldn't be..

DEBS: I was going to say, I do have a bit of a thing about a certain Russ Van Alstyne, but I think he's taken...

HALLIE: Reacher's definitely a hunk, but usually if he falls for a woman, she gets killed. Like those extra officers on the bridge in a Star Trek -- you know they're not long for this world. Definitely Russ Van Alstyne. Robert Dugoni's David Sloane. Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko.

RHYS: I admit Reacher is a hunk, but not the kind of guy for me. I would have said I went for the brooding intellectual, like Morse, but both my heroes are wild Irishmen (can that be because I married a guy who is half Black Irish? Deep psychology here) I've always had a thing for Deb's Duncan. Just an all around nice guy.
So confession time now: who will win our Saturday hunk poll?