Sample of literary figures
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Siv Dahlin
Female
After her divorce, assistant nurse Siv Dahlin leaves Gothenburg and works in lowly-paid jobs in rural areas in Sweden, including Dalarna. She is middle-aged and struggling with a tendency to put on weight. But she is also wise and observant, and when sudden deaths occur in the books by Aino Trosell, Siv Dahlin fortunately doesn’t always rely on the conclusions drawn by the authorities, but always carries out her own investigations.
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Thursday Next
Female
She is called Thursday Next, and is an agent for a state organisation in an absurd, parallel world (i.e. parallel to our own) that is imbued with literary features. She is newly married – we get to know that her husband Landen Parke-Laine drowned when he was three years old – and has a son Friday. Her mother is called Wednesday. Jasper Fforde has written a suite of very different fantasy crime novels about Thursday Next and her world.
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Dave Gurney
Male
A well-built police detective in New York who commands respect, renowned for having caught several serial murderers, who retires already when he is about 50 years old. He moves to the countryside with his wife Madeleine and their son, but can’t resist from privately investigating murders. He admits that this affects his family life, and thus always has a bad conscience, according to his creator John Verdon.
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Martin Holmberg
Male
An experienced and calm detective inspector in Lund, southern Sweden. After a first unhappy marriage with a frigid woman, he is now happily married to Kerstin, with whom he has four children. Martin Holmberg is a chain smoker and the central character in a police collective. He has a good relationship with his superior officers, first Bengt Thorén, later Seved Olofsson – as well as Stefan Elg and his other colleagues in the town of Himmelsholm.