Meny

Literary figures

Sample of literary figures

  • Tom Ripley

    Male

    He is charming, handsome and cultivated as well as being a ruthless serial killer and psychopath totally lacking in empathy, the main character in five classic thrillers by Patricia Highsmith. Thomas ‘Tom’ Ripley became an orphan when he was five years old, and was brought up by a callous female relative. He later marries the wealthy Héloïse Plisson, but nevertheless has successfully continued his criminal career.

    Further reading

  • Magdalena Hansson

    Female

    After a messy divorce, journalist Magdalena Hansson, together with her adoptive son Nils, moves from Stockholm to Hagfors, where she has got a job with the local paper, Värmlandsbladet, which is struggling to survive with falling sales. She shacks up with her teenage love Petter, and also solves several murder cases together with her police friends Petra Wilander and Christer Berglund in books by Ninni Schulman.

    Further reading

  • Father Brown

    Male

    The Catholic priest Father Brown (he has no first name) is active in England. He has a round, non-descript face and an umbrella which he is always losing; in addition, he usually carries a paper-wrapped package which he finds difficult to keep in order. But he is also one of the best amateur detectives in fiction, the main character in five classic collections of short stories (but no novel) by G.K. Chesterton.

    Further reading

  • Alex Recht

    Male

    In the Stockholm C.I.D., Detective Chief Inspector Alex Recht is something of a legend. With more than 30 years’ service and a large number of hard-to-solve cases behind him, he starts – even though he loves his job – to look forward to retirement and to being able to spend more time with his wife, Lena, with whom he has been married almost as long as he has been a police officer. In the books by Kristina Ohlsson he usually works together with Fredrika Bergman.

    Further reading