Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Alan Banks

    Male

    Detective Inspector Banks works in the fictional town of Eastvale in Swainsdale, a fictional region based on Yorkshire. He is the calm and systematic protagonist in a series of novels and short stories by the British author Peter Robinson. DI Banks likes model railways, sixties rock and his colleague Annie Cabbot, with whom he has had an off and on relationship after divorcing his wife Sandra.

    Further reading

  • Dexter Morgan

    Male

    A handsome, friendly and always well-dressed forensic technician, born in 1971 and married to Rita Bennett whose two children he is very fond of. In secret, he is a serial murderer lacking in empathy, as is revealed by author Jeff Lindsay (pseudonym for Jeffry P. Freundlich). Dexter Morgan saw his mother being murdered and is encouraged by his stepfather, who is a police officer, to kill major criminals who have evaded justice.

    Further reading

  • Erik Winter

    Male

    Winter is a detective inspector in Gothenburg, Sweden. Contrary to most other literary detectives he comes from a wealthy family and is well off. He marries a physician, Angela, and they have a child together in Åke Edwardson’s string of books about him. After a period of hard work, the family moves to Spain, but a couple of years later Winter returns to Gothenburg, without his family, and returns to his former job.

    Further reading

  • Thóra Gudmundsdóttir

    Female

    When we meet her in Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s first crime novel, skilful lawyer Þóra Guðmundsdóttir is 36 years old and the single mother of a son Gylfi, 16, and a daughter Sóley. She is divorced from her husband Hannes, but later embarks upon a relationship with the German police officer Matthew Reich. He is blond with long hair, high cheek bones and walnut-shaped blue eyes. And he is also the part-owner of a legal firm in Reykjavik.

    Further reading