Sample of literary figures
-
Dudley Smith
Male
Police officer in Los Angeles in four of James Ellroy’s novels. Dudley Smith was born in Ireland, he is tall and broad shouldered, and goes all in brown, one could say: he has brown hair cut very short, brown eyes and he usually wears a shabby, brown suit. Few police officers in crime fiction have been described as so unsympathetic: he is an egoistic and violent bully and, it turns out, a murderer. And he is happy with that!
-
Alex Morrow
Female
Morrow is a working class detective from Glasgow. She is the mother of twins and the protagonist in a series of tartan noir books by Denise Mina. Morrow is not always very forthcoming or correct, but she struggles to combine her job with being a mother and against misogynous bosses and colleagues in a city characterised by increasing class differences and violent crime.
-
Vincent Ruiz
Male
The colour of his face shows that he drinks too much. Otherwise he is big and strong – not least as regards language – with a broken nose. Vincent Ruiz has a history of 43 years as a police officer in London, three marriages and just as many divorces. He does, however, have good contact with his ex-wives as well as his children. And even though he is now retired, he still catches villains in Michael Robotham’s novels.
-
Lord Peter Wimsey
Male
The English aristocrat (he is the second son of a duke), bibliophile and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is one of the great men of crime fiction and principal character in a long line of classical stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. Witty and erudite, he solves crime with the help of logic, his butler, Bunter, and his friend (later brother-in-law) Inspector Charles Parker.