Sample of authors
Leroux, Gaston
Gaston Leroux was born in Paris but grew up in a little village in Normandy close to the home of his maternal grandparents. As a child he was interested in swimming, sailing and deep-sea fishing, but he also developed an interest in literature at an early age. He particularly appreciated Alexandre Dumas père and Victor Hugo, and he wrote imitations of their works during his school years. After ...
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...