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Portrait of Peter Lovesey Photo: Geoffrey Swaine / REX/TT (2009)

Sample of authors

Lovesey, Peter

Peter Lovesey is a British author of detective stories. He was born in Whitton, Middlesex, to Richard Lear, a bank clerk, and his wife Amy Lovesey. He was given his mother’s surname, but he used his father’s name for the pen name Peter Lear. Peter Lovesey attended the University of Reading 1955–58, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He then did his national service in the RAF and serve...

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Literary figures

Arlette van der Valk

Gender: Female

When she was young, she was called Davidson, but the changed her surname after marrying Detective Superintendent Piet Van der Valk in Amsterdam. She is a temperamental, intelligent master-chef and music lover, a minor character in most of the novels about her husband. When he is murdered, Arlette Van der Valk exposes the perpetrator, and then continues as a private detective to solve cases on...

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