Photo: Ola Erikson / Forflex (2015)
Sample of authors
Hawkins, Paula
Paula Hawkins grew up in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe). Her father was an economics professor and journalist. Paula spent the best part of her early childhood happily ignorant of the social injustices that were to lead up to the formation of Zimbabwe. She moved with her family to England in 1989, and after a few years her parents returned to Africa. Hawkins read political science,...
Literary figures
Merci Rayborn
Gender: Female
Female police detective, based in Orange County in California and featured in a trilogy by T. Jefferson Parker. Merci Rayborn is young, attractive, stubborn and devoted to her work – but is dogged by misfortune. Already in the first book, she makes a mistake which leads to the death of an older colleague – and he is the father of her as-yet-unborn son. As a single mother, she solves crimes where h...