Sample of literary figures
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Karen Pirie
Female
She is an overweight workaholic, but also exceptionally skilful when it comes to investigating old, unsolved cases in police novels by Val McDermid. Karen Pirie is the head of the Historic Cases Unit with its head office in Fife in Scotland. Her private life is minimal – but includes a sweetheart, her colleague Phil Parhatka, and she mourns deeply when he is killed on duty. But she soon throws herself into the next ‘cold case’.
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Lennart Kollberg
Male
Martin Beck’s second-in-command and good friend in the books by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö is Lennart Kollberg, a bohemian, overweight (but in good physical trim) former paratrooper, conscientious objector and Marxist who finally tires of his job in the police and give his notice. Kollberg has two major interests in life: food and his family; his 14-year younger wife, Gun – with whom he often enjoys making love – and their two children.
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Cal Weaver
Male
However many problems you have, author Linwood Barclay lets his private detective and former police officer, Cal Weaver, have it even worse. His son, Scott, dies in what is presumed to be suicide, and when he tries to find out what has happened, he becomes a suspect for the murder of a girl. Later, his wife, Donna, is shot dead. He is middle-aged, worn out and depressed, but despite all his setbacks is an effective investigator.
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Anastasia Kamenskaya
Female
The young, later middle-aged, Anastasia Kamenskaya is an analyst and investigator for the Moscow Police Department. She is linguistically gifted and beautiful, but is careless about her appearance and how she dresses. Her kind live-in partner (later her husband) looks after their home and accepts that she is often too tired for sex. She is also the main character in a long suite of novels by Alexandra Marinina (pseudonym for Marina Anatolyevna Alekseyeva).