Sample of literary figures
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Dudley Smith
Male
Police officer in Los Angeles in four of James Ellroy’s novels. Dudley Smith was born in Ireland, he is tall and broad shouldered, and goes all in brown, one could say: he has brown hair cut very short, brown eyes and he usually wears a shabby, brown suit. Few police officers in crime fiction have been described as so unsympathetic: he is an egoistic and violent bully and, it turns out, a murderer. And he is happy with that!
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Annika Bengtzon
Female
Annika Bengtzon is the creation of the Swedish author and journalist Liza Marklund and possibly Sweden’s best-known journalist. She is married with two children, but she is also a highly competent crime reporter with a bad conscience on account of neglecting her family. Bengtzon is a complex woman who can be hard and tough one minute and reduced to tears the next. Nevertheless, she is portrayed as a highly capable modern professional woman.
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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.
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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.