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Portrait of Stephen King Photo: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images (2017)

Sample of authors

King, Stephen

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine. His father, Donald Pollock, a vacuum cleaner salesman, sailor and philanderer (King has a half-sister in Brazil), went through a number of aliases before he changed his surname to King. When Stephen was two years old, his father went out to buy cigarettes and never came back. Stephen grew up in poor circumstances with his mother Ruth and his...

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Literary figures

Joshua Clunk

Gender: Male

He is a lawyer and one of the more unsympathetic problem solvers in crime fiction. He is a greedy hypocrite and uses dubious juridical tricks to have his clients found ‘not guilty’. He likes best to be at home with his only wife, whom author H.C.Bailey variously calls Maria, Rachel and Emma. But when he wants to be, Joshua Clunk is also a skilful detective who manages to prove the innocence of sev...

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