Ellery Queen (Lee and Dannay) Photo: Bettmann / Getty Images
Sample of authors
Queen, Ellery
Ellery Queen is a pen name shared by Frederic Dannay, born Daniel Nathan, and Manfred B. (Bennington) Lee, born Manford Lepofsky, both from New York. They were cousins who attended Boy's High School, Brooklyn, together and later worked independently within PR and advertising before they started writing full time in 1931.
Ellery Queen is something of institution in the detective genre; the books...
Literary figures
Karen Pirie
Gender: Female
She is an overweight workaholic, but also exceptionally skilful when it comes to investigating old, unsolved cases in police novels by Val McDermid. Karen Pirie is the head of the Historic Cases Unit with its head office in Fife in Scotland. Her private life is minimal – but includes a sweetheart, her colleague Phil Parhatka, and she mourns deeply when he is killed on duty. But she soon throws h...