Sample of literary figures
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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.
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John H. Watson
Male
Sherlock Holmes’ chronicler and permanent companion in the stories by A. Conan Doyle has given his name to a particular type of character in crime fiction: a detective’s right hand, conversational partner and admiring friend is called ‘a Watson figure’. In books by other authors, Dr Watson has solved cases by himself. The ‘H’ in his name (according to Sherlockian research) stands for Hamish, the Scottish for James.
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Vesper Johnson
Male
Detective Inspector Vesper Johnson is a unique, and very entertaining, character. He is vain with a “beaver” face and rakish moustache; he wears high heels and dyes his hair. Johnson solves crime in a string of novels by Stieg Trenter in which the protagonist is the photographer Harry Friberg. After Trenter’s death, his wife Ulla continued to write her own books about Friberg and Johnson.
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Bjørn Beltø
Male
Norwegian archaeologist, who solves mysteries with religious connections in a suite of novels by Tom Egeland. Bjørn Beltø is just over 30 years old and is an albino, which means that he has poor vision and pale skin. He is single and finds it hard to get relationships to work, despite certain women being interested in him. He periodically suffers from anxiety, and then prefers to sit at home and listen to classical music.