Sample of literary figures
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Diane Fry
Female
Detective Diane Fry, who features in a string of novels by Stephen Booth, is a competent investigator, but under the surface she is an insecure and vulnerable woman. She has a complicated relationship with Ben Cooper, one of her subordinates at the police station in the fictional town of Edendale in Derbyshire’s Peak District. They neither can or want to admit that they are in love.
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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.
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Cato Isaksen
Male
Inspector Cato Isaksen is successful at work, but his private life is a mess. Unni Lindell’s books are more than detective stories, they also portray Isaksen’s struggle to get comfortable with his male identity and not to let his private life interfere too much with his job. It adds an extra dimension to the books.
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Amos Decker
Male
A former professional footballer who has been a police officer but who had a breakdown when his wife and daughter were murdered. He is not handsome, but is athletically built and has dark hair. After the murders, Amos Decker stopped taking care of himself, became fat and shabby, and lost his job. He pulled himself together, however, became a private detective and later is employed by the FBI. He has hyperthemesia which means that he can remember in detail everything that happens to him.