Sample of literary figures
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Tom Thorne
Male
Tom Thorne is a middle-aged, somewhat worse for wear detective inspector in London. In the early books he is dull and conventional. However, his creator, Mark Billingham, has subsequently turned him into a multi-faceted character with bad as well as good qualities. He is persistent and conscientious, but he can also be short-tempered, grumpy and prone to making disastrous mistakes. Well into the series he becomes involved with Seargeant Helen Weeks.
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Philip Marlowe
Male
Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is the archetype of the hardboiled American private eye. Many subsequent authors of crime fiction have found inspiration in the lonesome, brooding detective. Marlowe is a former investigator at the district attorney’s office of Los Angeles County, he is well read, interested in social issues, and he moves as effortlessly in the upper echelons of society as in back alleys and shady bars thanks to his wisecracking repartee.
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Sam Kovac
Male
Tough, middle-aged police officer in Minneapolis, who doesn’t like following rules and regulations, but is still a competent policeman, claims author Tami Hoag. He is especially successful when he gets the younger, quick-thinking Nikki Liska as a colleague, and when they are forced to work each on their own, they both feel dissatisfied. Sam Kovac has two marriages behind him, and lives so totally for his work, that he doesn’t even clean his flat…
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Sidney Chambers
Male
James Runcie has written a suite of novels about Sidney Chambers, vicar in Grantchester near Cambridge, and describes that character’s activities as an Anglican priest and amateur detective. The good vicar is tall, slim, just over 30 years of age with a high forehead, a hook nose and brown eyes. He is married to the German widow Hildegarde Staunton, and they have a daughter called Anna. Detective Inspector Geordie Keating is a very good friend.