Sample of literary figures
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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.
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Kouplan
Male
He calls himself Kouplan, but his real name is Nesrine Amipour, born in 1968, and he is a transsexual guy in a woman’s body. He has trained as a journalist, but is now a refugee without papers in Sweden, homeless and unemployed. He supports himself by collecting drink-cans (and thus being able to cash in on the deposit) and works as a ‘private investigator’ in four novels by Sara Lövestam, while at the same time trying to ascertain what has happened to his Iranian family.
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Molly Cates
Female
A competent professional middle-aged investigative crime journalist, single mother and author. Molly Cates is primarily driven by a strong passion for justice. She works hard at her job, and even though she is attractive and men like her, all of her relationships have quickly broken up. One reason for this – according to author Mary Willis Walker – is that Cates is convinced that her father has been murdered.
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Adam Stubo
Male
Detective inspector in Oslo, later superintendent. Yngvar Stubø – who is often called Adam Stubo in translations – is a middle-aged man with an everyday appearance and who is described as gruff, but is also very fond of children. He meets and builds a family with forensic psychologist Inger Johanne Vik, who is the principal protagonist in a suite of thriller-like novels by Anne Holt, and together the couple solve cases.