Sample of literary figures
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Karen Pirie
Female
She is an overweight workaholic, but also exceptionally skilful when it comes to investigating old, unsolved cases in police novels by Val McDermid. Karen Pirie is the head of the Historic Cases Unit with its head office in Fife in Scotland. Her private life is minimal – but includes a sweetheart, her colleague Phil Parhatka, and she mourns deeply when he is killed on duty. But she soon throws herself into the next ‘cold case’.
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Gunnarstranda
Male
Detective Inspector Gunnarstranda – his first name is never mentioned – is a middle-aged man who smokes too much. He works for the Oslo police and solves crime in a string of books by the Norwegian author Kjell Ola Dahl. Gunnarstranda can be cynical and disillusioned, but he is also kind and helpful. He general works alongside his seargeant, Frank Frølich.
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John Dortmunder
Male
He is one of the most cunning thieves in the USA: he carefully plans the most fantastic coups, and has only been caught twice when he was young. Unfortunately, John Archibald Dortmunder is dogged with bad luck: his ingenious plans often go wrong at the last moment for the most incredible reasons. His adventures are described in more than a dozen entertaining – often farcical – novels by Donald E. Westlake.
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Meyer Meyer
Male
Max Meyer, of Polish-Jewish extraction, had a curious sense of humour: he named his son Meyer Meyer. The name contributed to the boy becoming the victim of bullies in school. As an adult, he turned completely bald, became a police detective, patient, and is married to the motherly Sarah with whom he has three children. He works in the 87th police district in Isola in police novels by Ed McBain (pseudonym for Evan Hunter).