Sample of literary figures
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Gereon Rath
Male
A police detective and war veteran in Köln, who after a fatal mistake in his work in 1929 is transferred to Berlin. According to author Volker Kutscher, Gereon Rath is between 30 and 40 years old, slim, skilled, stubborn and a morphine addict on account of traumatic war experiences. In Berlin he meets police stenographer Charlotte ‘Charly’ Ritter; they start a relationship, get married and build a family.
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Harry Kvist
Male
An odd character and an amateur detective: an ex-boxer and prison inmate who works as a debt-collector, is bi-sexual and drinks too much. The setting is Stockholm in the 1930s in a trio of novels by Martin Holmén. Harry Kvist is single, with few friends (but a lot of acquaintances), not particularly bright, but well-built, and he all too often uses his fists when trouble arises.
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Jakob Studer
Male
Perhaps the most famous problem solver in German-language crime fiction is Wachtmeister (approx: sergeant) Jakob Studer, a single elderly gentleman, overweight, with a pale, gaunt face and a heavy moustache. He was created by Swiss-Austrian Friedrich Glauser, is mainly active in the countryside and in small towns and solves his cases with the help of intuition and human knowledge.
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Hafez el-Assad
Male
He is simply called Assad by his colleagues in the crime novels by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen. Despite lacking formal qualifications, he is employed in the police department’s so-called ‘cold-case’ group. He generously shares of his knowledge of, for example, various types of weapons, but is not keen to talk about himself. Assad has his roots in an Arab country, probably Syria, and has certain difficulties with the Danish language.