Sample of literary figures
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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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Cato Isaksen
Male
Inspector Cato Isaksen is successful at work, but his private life is a mess. Unni Lindell’s books are more than detective stories, they also portray Isaksen’s struggle to get comfortable with his male identity and not to let his private life interfere too much with his job. It adds an extra dimension to the books.
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Lisa Mattei
Female
In 2005, Leif G.W. Persson wrote about the young detective inspector Lisa Mattei; ten years later, she is a middle-aged operations manager for the Swedish security services. She made a rapid career, but has a bad conscience because she rarely has time to be with her family, her husband Johan and her daughter Ella. She has private means, and is something of a connoisseur when it comes to clothes, for example. But she is also a gifted and skilful police officer.
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Sandy (Alejandro) Stern
Male
His father was a doctor who emigrated from Europe to Argentina. Alejandro ‘Sandy’ Stern moved on to the USA when he was a teenager, and there became successful as a skilful and empathetic defence lawyer. His greatest sorrow in life in that his wife, Clara, the mother of his children, committed suicide after 31 years of marriage. He has a role – sometimes central – in a handful of Scott Turow’s crime novels.