Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP/TT (2008)
Sample of authors
Le Carré, John
Born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, county of Dorset, England, John le Carré grew up in a troubled home. While his father served a prison sentence for fraud, his mother left the family when David was five years old. He did not see her again until he was 21. He grew up at boarding schools and in his father’s home, before he got the opportunity to enter higher education at age 16. He studied la...
Literary figures
Arkadij Renko
Gender: Male
Police officer in the Soviet Union and Russia, at first a detective chief inspector, but later demoted after he tried to expose the shady dealings of communist bigwigs. His father was a notorious general. Arkady Renko is middle-aged, thin with a pale face and greying dark hair. His first wife, Zaya, was unfaithful and left him, Martin Cruz Smith tells us. His second wife, Irina, dies after...