Dr. Reginald Fortune is a British amateur detective featured in 9 novels and 85 short stories by the author H.G. Bailey. The chubby and humorous amateur sleuth Fortune is one of the great detectives of the Golden Age (1920-1939), who distinguishes himself from the cosy and quite eccentric nature of the stereotype of his contemporaries. Unlike them, Reggie Fortune despised the snobbery of the upper class and the ruling class structures.

Other famous detectives of the Golden Age are Sherlock Holmes, London private investigator devised by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey, published by Dorothy L. Sayers.

The Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot and the spinster amateur detective Miss Marple by Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime are also among the famous detectives of the Golden Age. The first crime novels by writer Rex Stout about New York private detective Nero Wolfe also belong to this period.

The cosy and rather lazy Reggie Fortune loves big cars and good food. He also never rejects a good drink. Moreover, he enjoys the comfortable company of the Varieteegirls.

As part of his investigation, Reggie Fortune is compassionate and often emotionally involved in a case, sometimes becoming a burden for his colleagues, because such commitment is, in most cases, absolutely unimaginable to them.

Since he also has his own opinion of justice, it is quite possible that his procedures do not necessarily go hand in hand with the Criminal Code, and they may well be contrary. As well as cosy and sentimental traits, Reggie Fortune can also be quite vicious and become very angry in his investigations.

Compared to other short stories, those by author H.G. Baileys are quite long because they do not want to forgo the plastic representation of the characters or the dense representation of the atmosphere.