Sample of literary figures
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Auguste Dupin
Male
One of the most famous literary figures of all times, and the model for a whole row of fictive problem-solvers – including Sherlock Holmes. This despite the fact that <i>chevalier</i> Auguste Dupin features in only three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. During the daytime, he shuts himself up in his home, smokes and reads; at night, he often wanders along the streets in his home city, Paris.
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Alex Cross
Male
After several years as a widower and a single father with three children, the Afro-American police detective Alex Cross married Brianna ‘Bree’ Stone. But he refused to leave the slum district in Washington where the family lives and where he does charity work; but he did exchange his Porsche for a Mercedes. He is athletically built, has a PhD in Psychology and is the main character in a suite of police novels by James Patterson.
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John Dortmunder
Male
He is one of the most cunning thieves in the USA: he carefully plans the most fantastic coups, and has only been caught twice when he was young. Unfortunately, John Archibald Dortmunder is dogged with bad luck: his ingenious plans often go wrong at the last moment for the most incredible reasons. His adventures are described in more than a dozen entertaining – often farcical – novels by Donald E. Westlake.
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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’.