gumshoe

Farrell is terrific, as always, as an empathetic gumshoe investigating a trail of crime and corruption that rings true to devotees of L.A. noir, from Raymond Chandler to “Chinatown” to Jordan Harper.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026

Belascoarán Shayne stands somewhere on the gumshoe spectrum between Sam Spade and Columbo — but is very much a chilango, or Mexico City native.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 6, 2025

Melling’s scenery-chewing portrayal of the budding writer — and, here, amateur gumshoe — is one of the film’s chief delights.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2023

With Sam Rockwell playing a fedora-wearing gumshoe and Saoirse Ronan as an overeager police constable with an adorable Scottish accent, this looks like one of the most fun comedies of the fall season.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 9, 2022

In literature and in the popular imagination, the all-seeing private eye—the gumshoe, the cinder dick, the sleuthhound, the shadow—displaced the crusading sheriff as the archetype of rough justice.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

Then he gumshoed around the neighborhood and found that Ohman, though uneducated in a formal sense, was a smart man who often expressed an urge to fool the scholars.

From Time Magazine Archive

Today there are spooky gumshoed armies of "security consultants," "rent-a-cops," "private eyes," "outside experts"—every manner of shady operator who retails in "results" and discretion.

From The Hacker Crackdown, law and disorder on the electronic frontier by Bruce Sterling

"Has that grasping old monopolist gumshoed into town again?" inquired Washburn, and promptly ordered his secretary to get Boise on the telephone.

From Five Thousand an Hour : how Johnny Gamble won the heiress by George Randolph Chester

When your trades are newspapering and gumshoeing, you tend to meet interesting people from all walks of life.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 22, 2022

But since last June, when the President authorized a $1,600,000 fund for radio's defense efforts, aerial gumshoeing put on seven-megacycle gum boots, established a special National Defense Operations Section to supplement FCC's routine monitoring work.

From Time Magazine Archive

In all, some 17,000 names were carefully set down by Hague's 311 district leaders, with appropriate comments by gumshoeing ward heelers.

From Time Magazine Archive

"This was a great piece of high-tech gumshoeing," marveled Steve Tuttle, vice president of the National Cable Television Association.

From Time Magazine Archive

You don't go gumshoeing it around behind a fellow's back, and talking the same way.

From Guy Garrick by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve