Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Gordianus

    Female

    He is called Gordianus the Finder, and is a private investigator in ancient Rome in the days of Julius Caesar. ‘Lawyers’ and orators like Cicero are some of the people who use his services in historical crime novels by Steven Saylor. Gordianus’ wife is the Egyptian Bethesda, previously his concubine whom he had bought as a slave. He lives in Rome until he inherits a farm in Etruria, but later moves back to the city.

    Further reading

  • Diane Fry

    Female

    Detective Diane Fry, who features in a string of novels by Stephen Booth, is a competent investigator, but under the surface she is an insecure and vulnerable woman. She has a complicated relationship with Ben Cooper, one of her subordinates at the police station in the fictional town of Edendale in Derbyshire’s Peak District. They neither can or want to admit that they are in love.

    Further reading

  • Embla Nystrom

    Female

    Former Nordic champion boxer (light welterweight), now a county police officer in the west of Sweden. She is about 30 years old and muscular, with curly reddish-brown hair and blue-green eyes in a somewhat round face: cute but not pretty, according to her creator Helene Tursten. Having grown up with three brothers, Embla Nystrom knows how to put lads in their place. The man in her life is little Elliot, the son of her ex-husband Jason.

    Further reading

  • Sidney Chambers

    Male

    James Runcie has written a suite of novels about Sidney Chambers, vicar in Grantchester near Cambridge, and describes that character’s activities as an Anglican priest and amateur detective. The good vicar is tall, slim, just over 30 years of age with a high forehead, a hook nose and brown eyes. He is married to the German widow Hildegarde Staunton, and they have a daughter called Anna. Detective Inspector Geordie Keating is a very good friend.

    Further reading