Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Alex Cross

    Male

    After several years as a widower and a single father with three children, the Afro-American police detective Alex Cross married Brianna ‘Bree’ Stone. But he refused to leave the slum district in Washington where the family lives and where he does charity work; but he did exchange his Porsche for a Mercedes. He is athletically built, has a PhD in Psychology and is the main character in a suite of police novels by James Patterson.

    Further reading

  • Peter Diamond

    Male

    Peter Diamond is a police officer, formerly stationed in London, and now working in Bath in Somerset. He is 50+, a widower and overweight with abominable dietary habits – ‘an ambulatory heart attack’, according to his creator Peter Lovesey. Already in the early books, Diamond left the police service, but returned after a couple of novels. Through his stubbornness and the way he ignores orders, he solves a number of sensitive cases.

    Further reading

  • Rebecka Martinsson

    Female

    Beautiful and well-educated lawyer – who first works in a law firm and later becomes a public prosecutor – who has a central role in all of Åsa Larsson’s crime stories. In the first books, Rebecka Martinsson is living in Stockholm, but her work takes her to Kiruna, where she grew up, and she later moves back there. She has quite a lot of problems at work as well as in her private life, but is supported by friends, including the police officer Anna-Maria Mella.

    Further reading

  • 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