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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Gideon Fell
Male
The enormous Dr Fell, whose physical traits are modelled on G.K. Chesterton, is one of crime fiction’s foremost problem-solvers when it comes to ‘locked-room’ mysteries and other ‘impossible’ crimes. He also works on an ever-growing doctoral thesis about English drinking habits from bygone days, he likes his beer and is married – although his wife is only mentioned in a few of John Dickson Carr’s books about him.
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Peter Pascoe
Male
The well-educated, well brought-up, intelligent but somewhat unimaginative detective Peter Pascoe is the permanent companion to his brusque boss Andy Dalziel in the detective stories by Reginald Hill. Pascoe has problems: apart from Dalziel, he also has a father who has never been able to accept that his son become a policeman instead of a farmer, and he has a wife, Ellie – they have a child together – in a marriage that is in danger of falling apart.
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Jason Bourne
Male
David Webb was a professional killer and spy when he suffers a total loss of memory after a mission. The CIA quickly changed his name to Jason Bourne, and have used him for several missions of a not particularly honourable nature. His wife was killed in a bombing, but his sons survived – which he didn’t know at first. Robert Ludlum wrote the first books about him, after which he was taken over by other writers.