Edgar Allan Poe's detective C.A. Dupin was a role model for Sherlock Holmes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Auguste_Dupin

I've been loving Poe's stories for ages!

Willing Participant wrote:

Does anyone know any books (or films), where the hero thinks and acts always comprehensible and rational like Sherlock?
Like the "Agent Pendergast"-Series or "Around the World in Eighty Days"?
I like such books ;)

There is some similar deductive reasoning in the book, "The Man Who Knew Too Much by GK Chesterton.  It is a series of short mystery stories.  There are some 1900's England references of which I was not too familiar, but I still enjoyed the stories.  The book is available free online as an e-book.

A little background.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an influential and prolific English writer of the early 20th century. He was a journalist, a poet and a novelist. He wrote 80 books and 200 short stories in addition to his other work. He is perhaps best remembered for his ‘Father Brown’ stories; two collections of which are available at Librivox.org.
‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ has some similarities to the Father Brown stories: Horne Fisher the eponymous hero is connected and indeed related to many of the high-ranking politicians of his age and thus ‘knows too much’ about the background of the mysteries in which he becomes embroiled and which he unravels. (Summary by Martin Clifton)

rob k

How about Agatha Chrisie?  As I understand it, she was a SH fan herself.  Her earlier works are more in mold of SH though her later books leaned more toward the psycological solving of crimes (Criminal Minds?).  In the story, "Cards on the Table,"  Hercule Poirot solves a case solely from the tally sheets of bridge players,  and it story makes good sense.

robk

Sorry, but I could never really take to Poirot. I'm not sure why but I guess it's that I just like to learn more about the hero's private life, his light and dark sides, etc., and to me Poirot always seemed a bit one-dimensional.