Sample of literary figures
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Mma Makutsi
Female
She struggles with her poor skin and unflattering spectacles, but Mma Grace Makutsi has impressively high grades from her secretarial course and is a lady with skin on her nose and a sharp tongue. In Alexander McCall Smith’s suite of novels about The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana’s capital Gaborone, Mma Makutsi is first employed, but after a while becomes a part-owner of the agency. She is also happily married to Phuti Radiphuti.
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Lisa Mattei
Female
In 2005, Leif G.W. Persson wrote about the young detective inspector Lisa Mattei; ten years later, she is a middle-aged operations manager for the Swedish security services. She made a rapid career, but has a bad conscience because she rarely has time to be with her family, her husband Johan and her daughter Ella. She has private means, and is something of a connoisseur when it comes to clothes, for example. But she is also a gifted and skilful police officer.
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Logan McRae
Male
Author Stuart MacBride paints a picture of a dark and gloomy Aberdeen, where police detective Logan McRae investigates cases which include a lot of violence – sometimes against children. He, himself, has a background which is not entirely without blemishes, and sometimes he is wounded on duty or is transferred after breaking various rules. He is tired, often unshaven and a bit shabby-looking, but nevertheless has a permanent, if somewhat shaky, relationship with Samantha.
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Karen Pirie
Female
She is an overweight workaholic, but also exceptionally skilful when it comes to investigating old, unsolved cases in police novels by Val McDermid. Karen Pirie is the head of the Historic Cases Unit with its head office in Fife in Scotland. Her private life is minimal – but includes a sweetheart, her colleague Phil Parhatka, and she mourns deeply when he is killed on duty. But she soon throws herself into the next ‘cold case’.