Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Varg Veum

    Male

    With his books about the private detective Varg Veum, author Gunnar Staalesen transferred American hardboiled noir to a Scandinavian setting – Bergen in Norway. Veum is one of the best-known fictional characters in Norway; he features in several television productions as well as a comic strip. He operates in widely different social settings and is prone to commenting on current affairs.

    Further reading

  • Lisbeth Salander

    Female

    A young punk rocker, computer hacker and cracker with a troubled past, including a spell at a psychiatric ward. She is one of Sweden’s best-known female characters internationally. Salander is the protagonist of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy and the official sequel. She is a highly organized woman on the left of the political spectrum, and when she needs to she is an efficient action heroine.

    Further reading

  • Matthew Hope

    Male

    Lawyer Matthew Hope moves with his wife Susan and daughter Joanna from Chicago to Calusa in Florida to work with commercial law for a small law firm. But nothing goes as he wished: thanks to his detective talents, he unwillingly becomes a leading criminal lawyer and his marriage ends in divorce, as we read in the books by Ed McBain (pseudonym for Evan Hunter).

    Further reading

  • Maisie Dobbs

    Female

    Young, brave and intelligent private detective who started to work as a domestic when she was only 13 years old. Maisie Dobbs had a benevolent female employer, and got to study nursing and psychology. She fell in love with a doctor who was killed in the First World War, and in 1929 she started her own detective agency. Jacqueline Winspear has written more than a dozen books about her.

    Further reading