Photo: Louis MONIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (1987)
Sample of authors
Malet, Léo
French author born as Léon Malet in Montpellier. Having lost his parents when he was four years old, he was raised by his paternal grandparents. He left school at an early age and started to work, among other things, in a bank and in a factory. In his spare time he sold anarchist magazines. When he was sixteen he ran off to Paris where he tried to make a living singing at a cabaret in Montmartre ...
Literary figures
Roderick Alleyn
Gender: Male
His titled parents wanted him to become a diplomat; instead Roderick Alleyn chose to become a police officer and work for Scotland Yard. In more than 30 novels by Ngaio Marsh, he solves cases in a highly cultivated manner, often side-by-side with his wife, portrait-painter Agatha Troy. He is tall, dark and ‘stylish’ and is just as much at home in society as with the inhabitants of small country to...