Meny

Literary figures

Sample of literary figures

  • Maria Wern

    Female

    Maria Wern is a young sergeant who balances crime investigations with family life, including an insufferable husband. She later moves to the island of Gotland where she continues to solve crime. The author, Anna Jansson, has also written a number of young adult detective novels that feature Wern’s son, Emil.

    Further reading

  • Patrik Hedstrom

    Male

    He is employed as a detective inspector in Tanumshede, western Sweden, but spends most of his time in Fjällbacka, where he lives and – together with his wife, author Erica Falck – solves a row of murder cases in the books by Camilla Läckberg. Patrik Hedstrom is partly based on Läckberg’s first husband, and is described as a ‘completely ordinary guy’, but he is a skilled crime investigator with quite a lot of charm.

    Further reading

  • Carol Jordan

    Female

    Carol Jordan is a detective at the head of a special task force that investigates violent crime in the fictional town of Bradfield, England. She collaborates with the profiler Tony Hill in a series of novels by Val McDermid. They have a fraught personal relationship that ends when Jordan leaves the profession after a breakdown following the murder of her brother. She later makes a comeback and continues to work with Hill.

    Further reading

  • Archie Goodwin

    Male

    The voluminous private detective Nero Wolfe, created by Rex Stout, rarely leaves home. He lets his secretary, Archie Goodwin, do the legwork, and Goodwin is not a bad detective either. He is good looking, polite, tough when he needs to be, quick-witted and he can memorize interrogations word for word. He is usually the narrator in the Nero Wolfe books. His employer would never have been able to solve crime as elegantly as he does without him.

    Further reading