Sample of literary figures
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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.
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Martin Beck
Male
Few Swedes can have escaped Inspector Martin Beck of the Stockholm police department. A principal character in Maj Sjöwall’s and Per Wahlöö’s ten police novels, he is the typical meticulous, unhappily married, ulcer-suffering inspector in contemporary crime fiction. He has won international fame through the books and a string of adaptations for film and television.
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Joe (Joseph) O'Loughlin
Male
He has had a successful career as a psychologist. But Joseph (Joe) O'Loughlin has reason to be depressed: he has separated from his wife Julianne, who later dies, and he suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Nor is he handsome: he has a long, but pear-shaped nose, watery brown eyes and a pale complexion. He also becomes involved in several cases of severe crime in novels by Michael Robotham.
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Beate Stein
Female
A young police detective in Dortmund, blond and with green eyes, and tough enough (or more than so) to survive and thrive in a male-dominated workplace. Beate Stein is a heterosexual feminist who prefers to put men behind bars rather than women, but she never cheats in her work. Through the books by Sabine Deitmer, she has become something of a figurehead for what is known as <i>Frauen-Krimis</i>.