Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • 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.

    Further reading

  • Barbara Havers

    Female

    Contrary to many other female police officers in crime fiction Barbara Havers is not a good-looking woman. Her creator, Elizabeth George, claims she made her deliberately unattractive and unkempt. Havers has cooperation issues and she is moody, stubborn and temperamental. Yet she has a functional working relationship with her complete opposite, the well bred, neatly turned out Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley.

    Further reading

  • Ann Lindell

    Female

    Lindell is a detective inspector in Uppsala, Sweden, and the protagonist in a series of much acclaimed novels by Kjell Eriksson. In the first book she has a relationship with a farmer, Edward Risberg. Following their reluctant separation, Lindell has a somewhat chaotic private life at the same time as she is highly efficient, creative and popular at work.

    Further reading

  • Thóra Gudmundsdóttir

    Female

    When we meet her in Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s first crime novel, skilful lawyer Þóra Guðmundsdóttir is 36 years old and the single mother of a son Gylfi, 16, and a daughter Sóley. She is divorced from her husband Hannes, but later embarks upon a relationship with the German police officer Matthew Reich. He is blond with long hair, high cheek bones and walnut-shaped blue eyes. And he is also the part-owner of a legal firm in Reykjavik.

    Further reading