Photo: Ulf Andersen / Hulton Archive via Getty Images (1987)
Sample of authors
Fowles, John
John Robert Fowles was born in a middle-class family in the Essex town of Leigh-on-Sea. His father, Robert Fowles, dreamt of a career in the legal profession, but when the First World War broke out he was instead forced to take over the family's tobacco business. His mother, Gladys May, was a housewife. Fowles grew up in the security of a terraced housing estate, but later in life he confessed...
Literary figures
Paddy Meehan
Gender: Female
When Patricia ‘Paddy’ Meehan gets a job with a newspaper in Glasgow, she is overjoyed. The job isn’t as much fun as she had hoped, but after having solved a murder case she is promoted to crime reporter – and can solve some more cases. Her family are poor, but she nevertheless manages to live a fairly pleasant private life, writes Denise Mina in her dark detective stories about Paddy.