Sample of literary figures
-
Fran Hunter
Female
Single mother, artist and teacher who settles on the Shetland Islands so that her daughter Cassie can get to know her father, Fran’s former husband, who is from the islands. However, Fran finds herself in a murder mystery and meets police officer Jimmy Perez with whom she starts a relationship. The books about Hunter and Perez gave author Ann Cleeves her breakthrough – despite the tragic end to the love story.
-
Philip Marlowe
Male
Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is the archetype of the hardboiled American private eye. Many subsequent authors of crime fiction have found inspiration in the lonesome, brooding detective. Marlowe is a former investigator at the district attorney’s office of Los Angeles County, he is well read, interested in social issues, and he moves as effortlessly in the upper echelons of society as in back alleys and shady bars thanks to his wisecracking repartee.
-
Molly Cates
Female
A competent professional middle-aged investigative crime journalist, single mother and author. Molly Cates is primarily driven by a strong passion for justice. She works hard at her job, and even though she is attractive and men like her, all of her relationships have quickly broken up. One reason for this – according to author Mary Willis Walker – is that Cates is convinced that her father has been murdered.
-
Joe Ashworth
Male
He is a detective sergeant in Northumberland, married and with a daughter Jessie. He is also a faithful companion to the eccentric and unconventional Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope in a suite of police novels by Ann Cleeves. Ashworth is one of the few people in whom Vera trusts – she regards him more like a son. However, she is forever forgetting what his wife and daughter are called…