Sample of literary figures
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Guido Brunetti
Male
Commissario (Detective Superintendent) Brunetti in the Italian state police, stationed in Venice, solves murder cases in a number of books by American author Donna Leon, herself resident in the city. Brunetti is married to Paola, daughter in an aristocratic family and a university lecturer, and has a lively family life which includes children and his own as well as his wife’s relatives. He also battles against the Italian bureaucracy which doesn’t exactly facilitate his work.
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Adam Fawley
Male
Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) in Oxford and the main character in a suite of novels by the pseudonym Cara Hunter. The kind and compassionate Adam Fawley is in his early 40s and a little more than 180 cm tall, dark-haired, and moreover very attractive. He solves his cases with the help of an experienced team of detectives. His wife is the lawyer Alex, and the couple are grieving their only child, their son Jake, who died at the age of ten.
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Kay Scarpetta
Female
Patricia Cornwell’s protagonist is a forensic scientist based in Virginia, USA. She has been described as just over forty years old, blond with several love interests and a few female competitors who do not appreciate her confidence. She is a highly competent forensic investigator and crack shot, which is useful since she is often under threat. Scarpetta likes to cook in her spare time.
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Hercule Poirot
Male
The Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot worked for the Belgian police until Agatha Christie transferred him to England. Poirot is characterised by his vanity, his strong French accent, his egg-shaped head and his impressive moustache, and he solves crime in a string of classic whodunits. Poirot eventually became so famous that <i>The Times</i> published an obituary when Christie killed him off in one of her books.