Photo: Francesco Da Vinci/Getty Images (c.1992)
Sample of authors
Gardner, John (f. 1926)
John Edmund Gardner was a British novelist. He was born in the village of Seaton Delaval in Northumberland as the son of a clergyman. He briefly attended Cottham’s Preparatory School in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1931, and after the family had moved to Wantage in Berkshire in 1933, King Alfred’s School 1934–1943. He joined the Home Guard at the start of the Second World War and in 1943 the Royal Marin...
Literary figures
Harry Kvist
Gender: Male
An odd character and an amateur detective: an ex-boxer and prison inmate who works as a debt-collector, is bi-sexual and drinks too much. The setting is Stockholm in the 1930s in a trio of novels by Martin Holmén. Harry Kvist is single, with few friends (but a lot of acquaintances), not particularly bright, but well-built, and he all too often uses his fists when trouble arises.