Camber Fosrick

Camber Fosrick was a fictional detective who appeared in a series of books and short stories written by Lodevin Parkar, a scribe of Cormyr, and published in Faerûn in the mid–14 century DR.

Description
In the stories, Camber Fosrick was a "great consulting cogitator" who solved various crimes and mysteries such as smuggling, robberies, and murders, typically with elaborate and exciting plots. His approach focused on logic, deductive reasoning, and putting together apparently unrelated clues to come to a rational conclusion. His techniques included such things as examining footprints interviewing barkeepers, and playing tricks. For example, to prove a man was a murderer, Fosrick suddenly threw a ball at him, which he caught in his allegedly unusable left hand (Jasper found this did not work nearly so well in practice). The stories often culminated in Fosrick assembling all the suspects in one place, laying out the facts, and revealing the culprit.

Fosrick was portrayed as courageous and gallant, the kind of man who'd laugh at ghosts.

History
Camber Fosrick was created by Lodevin Parkar, a scribe of Cormyr. The Camber Fosrick stories were in publication through 1365 DR.

New stories were still being published around 1367 DR and were well known around Cormyr at the time.

Reputation
The Camber Fosrick stories were well known in Cormyr, even in the farming town of Ghars, in the mid-1360s DR, with many people familiar enough with them to reference them in conversation or use "Camber Fosrick" as a byword for a skilled detective, such as Captain Flim and Lukas Spoondrift.

The servant Jasper loved the thrilling tales, complex plots, and the character of Camber Fosrick himself. He even compared Fosrick's approach to the concepts discussed in Thought and Its Processes. Jasper occasionally fancied himself as being like Camber Fosrick when monitoring goings-on in the Bold Bard tavern, tracking footprints, or needing to bolster his courage. The Camber Fosrick stories would in fact be his only training and basis for investigating the murders of Dovo and Grodoveth on behalf of his master Benelaius in Eleint of 1367 DR.

The young War Wizard Lindavar was also well-read in the Fosrick tales and quoted them to others.

However, Benelaius, a retired War Wizard, scholar, and part-time consulting cogitator himself, derided the Camber Fosrick stories as "drivel" and "tripe" that would rot the readers' brains if they weren't already rotted enough to want to read them in the first place. The Ghars library, curated by Phelos Marmwitz, did not stock any of the Camber Fosrick books, but only "serious literature".

Nevertheless, a copy of The Adventures of Camber Fosrick was kept in no less than the great temple-library of Candlekeep by 1372 DR.

Behind the Scenes
Camber Fosrick may be based on the fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin created by Edgar Allan Poe, with Benelaius (himself based on Nero Wolfe) treating Fosrick with similar scorn as Sherlock Holmes did Dupin and Jasper once referring to his investigation as ratiocination as Poe did. Another inspiration may be Sherlock Holmes himself, as both are labelled "consulting" and "great" detectives/cogitators.