Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Peter Diamond

    Male

    Peter Diamond is a police officer, formerly stationed in London, and now working in Bath in Somerset. He is 50+, a widower and overweight with abominable dietary habits – ‘an ambulatory heart attack’, according to his creator Peter Lovesey. Already in the early books, Diamond left the police service, but returned after a couple of novels. Through his stubbornness and the way he ignores orders, he solves a number of sensitive cases.

    Further reading

  • John Cardinal

    Male

    He has a good name as a police officer and family father when his wife is found dead after what is presumed to be suicide. Besides, Detective Cardinal is, without knowing it himself, suspected of having taken bribes. His name is cleared and he starts to work with cold cases in the fictive town of Algonquin Bay in Ontario in Canada together with his younger colleague Lise Delorme in a suite of crime novels by Giles Blunt.

    Further reading

  • Kathy Mallory

    Female

    Kathleen ‘Kathy’ Mallory is a tall, green-eyed, beautiful blonde. She is also – according to her creator Carol O’Connell – a sociopath who can be both callous and ruthless. At the age of six, after witnessing the murder of her mother Kathy Mallory, she lived on the streets until she was adopted by a police officer. Encouraged by him, she becomes a police detective. She doesn’t lack admirers, but lives on her own.

    Further reading

  • Gunnarstranda

    Male

    Detective Inspector Gunnarstranda – his first name is never mentioned – is a middle-aged man who smokes too much. He works for the Oslo police and solves crime in a string of books by the Norwegian author Kjell Ola Dahl. Gunnarstranda can be cynical and disillusioned, but he is also kind and helpful. He general works alongside his seargeant, Frank Frølich.

    Further reading