Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Robin Ellacott

    Female

    A long-legged blonde woman with long hair and blue-green eyes, first secretary and later assistant to private detective Cormoran Strike i London. She has a similarly long-lasting yet ambivalent relationship with her future husband Matthew Cunliffe, who wants her to get a different job. Author Robert Galbraith (pseudonym for J.K. Rowling) reveals that Robin Ellacott has more than friendly feelings for Strike.

    Further reading

  • John H. Watson

    Male

    Sherlock Holmes’ chronicler and permanent companion in the stories by A. Conan Doyle has given his name to a particular type of character in crime fiction: a detective’s right hand, conversational partner and admiring friend is called ‘a Watson figure’. In books by other authors, Dr Watson has solved cases by himself. The ‘H’ in his name (according to Sherlockian research) stands for Hamish, the Scottish for James.

    Further reading

  • Joe Ashworth

    Male

    He is a detective sergeant in Northumberland, married and with a daughter Jessie. He is also a faithful companion to the eccentric and unconventional Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope in a suite of police novels by Ann Cleeves. Ashworth is one of the few people in whom Vera trusts – she regards him more like a son. However, she is forever forgetting what his wife and daughter are called…

    Further reading

  • Gunnar Mellberg

    Male

    A detective inspector, later chief inspector, in Lund, Sweden. He is tall, well-built, smokes a pipe and is interested in gardening. With his wife, he has four children. K. Arne Blom has written five novels (and a book for people with reading impediments) about Gunnar Mellberg. In the first novels, he has a minor yet important role, in the final one it is revealed that he is the son of one of Blom’s main characters, the security agent Loman.

    Further reading