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Portrait image of Ian Rankin Ian Rankin and Maj Sjöwall
Photo: Ola Erikson / Forflex

Sample of authors

Rankin, Ian

The Scottish crime writer Ian James Rankin was born in the coal mining town of Cardenden, Fife, where his father owned a grocery store. His mother worked in a school canteen. There were few books at home, and Rankin began to visit his local library as a child and began to write short stories as a teenager. He attended Denend Primary School in Cardendan and later Auchterderran Junior High at...

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Literary figures

Matt Scudder

Gender: Male

He killed a young girl in an accident, which caused Matthew ‘Matt’ Scudder to leave his job with the police and his family. He started to drink and moved to the notorious ghetto Hell’s Kitchen in New York, but eventually became a ‘sober alcoholic’ and private detective without a licence in a suite of novels by Lawrence Block. Scudder even starts a long-term relationship with the prostitute Elaine...

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