Sample of literary figures
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Kristina Vendel
Female
Female detective inspector with the police in Huddinge, Stockholm. Her father had fled from East Germany to Sweden; Kristina Vendel’s marriage to Johan is in trouble and eventually breaks up. She has light hair, grey-green eyes, and studied Philosophy before she started at Police College. She has a tough time at work, and is often abused in several ways, Theodor Kallifatides tells us.
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John Madden
Male
Scotland Yard detective John Madden suffered from an explosion during the First World War, but nevertheless in 1921 still solves the murder of four persons in the Surrey countryside. After that, he and his wife, Dr Helen Blackwell, settle as farmers in Surrey, but for various reasons Madden nevertheless takes part in investigations of several brutal murders in England during the Thirties and Forties in a suite of novels by Rennie Airth.
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Siv Dahlin
Female
After her divorce, assistant nurse Siv Dahlin leaves Gothenburg and works in lowly-paid jobs in rural areas in Sweden, including Dalarna. She is middle-aged and struggling with a tendency to put on weight. But she is also wise and observant, and when sudden deaths occur in the books by Aino Trosell, Siv Dahlin fortunately doesn’t always rely on the conclusions drawn by the authorities, but always carries out her own investigations.
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Peter Diamond
Male
Peter Diamond is a police officer, formerly stationed in London, and now working in Bath in Somerset. He is 50+, a widower and overweight with abominable dietary habits – ‘an ambulatory heart attack’, according to his creator Peter Lovesey. Already in the early books, Diamond left the police service, but returned after a couple of novels. Through his stubbornness and the way he ignores orders, he solves a number of sensitive cases.