Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Ben Cooper

    Male

    Cooper’s father was a policeman and Benjamin, or Ben, followed in his footsteps. He works at the Derbyshire police. Cooper grew up in Derbyshire and many of his investigations take place in the Peak District. He usually works alongside his superior officer, Diane Fry. In Stephen Booth’s novels they are in love; a fact they both refuse to admit it even to themselves.

    Further reading

  • John Bright

    Male

    He is a detective inspector in Kentish Town just outside London, where he gets to experience everything from a decomposing female corpse in a bathtub to gang-shootings. John Bright is small of stature, dark, likes to wear a shoddy leather jacket, and (according to author Maureen O’Brien) looks more like a criminal than a police officer. He can be very irritable, doesn’t like travelling and has a patient girlfriend called Jude.

    Further reading

  • Jules-Joseph Maigret

    Male

    French detective inspector and something of an icon within the genre. Maigret was a farmer’s boy who became a cop by chance and quickly earned himself an office at the Paris police headquarters at Quai des Orfèvres. Georges Simenon’s books do not only follow the inspector’s investigations, but also his private life, including a happy, but childless, marriage.

    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