Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • 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

  • Aurelio Zen

    Male

    Detective Inspector Zen is a loner based in Rome, but he solves crime all over Italy. He may seem clumsy, but his determination and laissez-faire attitude to police protocol means that he is both successful and unpopular with his superiors. Aurelio Zen featured in one book by the British author Michael Dibdin, but he became so popular that Dibdin wrote another ten about him.

    Further reading

  • Tommy Beresford

    Male

    The red-headed Thomas ‘Tommy’ Beresford is something of an unimaginative but stubborn Englishman, who took part in the First World War and was wounded twice. He subsequently married his childhood friend Prudence ‘Tuppence’ Cowley, and they have two children and adopt a third. Together, the couple solve a number of cases with good humour and entertaining dialogues in four novels and a collection of short stories by Agatha Christie.

    Further reading

  • Svend Foyn

    Male

    Lawyer and a skilled amateur detective who lives in the Norwegian town of Tønsberg, like his creator Jan Mehlum. Svend Foyn is divorced and has a teenaged daughter, loves music and books and easily becomes sentimental. His appearance is not particularly noticeable, but he is quite tall – more than 190 cm – and struggles to hold his weight under 90 kilos. His best female friend is Hulda – a Saint Bernhard dog.

    Further reading