Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Jimmy Perez

    Male

    Despite the surname, members of the Perez family have lived on the Shetland Islands for several hundred years – they are descendants of shipwrecked Spaniards. He is a police officer, and the main character in a number of police procedurals by Ann Cleeves. Perez starts a relationship with the single mother Fran Hunter in the first book, and suffers badly when he later loses her. He does, however, surface again and returns in several books.

    Further reading

  • Barbara Havers

    Female

    Contrary to many other female police officers in crime fiction Barbara Havers is not a good-looking woman. Her creator, Elizabeth George, claims she made her deliberately unattractive and unkempt. Havers has cooperation issues and she is moody, stubborn and temperamental. Yet she has a functional working relationship with her complete opposite, the well bred, neatly turned out Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley.

    Further reading

  • Maureen O’Donnell

    Female

    She is the protagonist in the prize-winning Garnethill trilogy by the Scottish crime writer Denise Mina. Young Maureen is a human wreck: sexually abused by her father, her mother an alcoholic, her brother a drug dealer. She has spent time in a mental hospital, and started a relationship with her psychiatrist. But she is stubborn and determined, and struggles to solve the problems and crimes she comes across.

    Further reading

  • Gavin Troy

    Male

    Troy is a detective in the fictive English county of Midsomer, and Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby’s right hand. In Caroline Graham’s novel, Tory is a clever and intelligent police officer, but his prejudices – he is, for example, a homophobe – and rather abrupt manner speak against him. In the TV series <i>Midsomer Murders</i>, his personality has been ‘corrected’ and he is decidedly more sympathetic, and is still a skilled investigator.

    Further reading