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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John Bright
Male
He is a detective inspector in Kentish Town just outside London, where he gets to experience everything from a decomposing female corpse in a bathtub to gang-shootings. John Bright is small of stature, dark, likes to wear a shoddy leather jacket, and (according to author Maureen O’Brien) looks more like a criminal than a police officer. He can be very irritable, doesn’t like travelling and has a patient girlfriend called Jude.
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Kristin Bye
Female
Approximately 30 years old, Kristin Bye is a famous TV journalist and personality in her home country, Norway. Her creator, Tom Egeland, describes her as tall and slim, with green eyes and reddish-brown hair. She is interested in mysticism, which is not always appreciated by her good friend and colleague, veteran journalist Gunnar Borg. She lives alone but has a long-term relationship with Christoffer, a docusoap celebrity actor.
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Tommy Beresford
Male
The red-headed Thomas ‘Tommy’ Beresford is something of an unimaginative but stubborn Englishman, who took part in the First World War and was wounded twice. He subsequently married his childhood friend Prudence ‘Tuppence’ Cowley, and they have two children and adopt a third. Together, the couple solve a number of cases with good humour and entertaining dialogues in four novels and a collection of short stories by Agatha Christie.