Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Carol Jordan

    Female

    Carol Jordan is a detective at the head of a special task force that investigates violent crime in the fictional town of Bradfield, England. She collaborates with the profiler Tony Hill in a series of novels by Val McDermid. They have a fraught personal relationship that ends when Jordan leaves the profession after a breakdown following the murder of her brother. She later makes a comeback and continues to work with Hill.

    Further reading

  • Henry Merrivale

    Male

    Sir Henry Merrivale is one of the most entertaining, arrogant and easily aroused figures in the world of crime fiction. He has a high position in the British security services and drives government bureaucrats crazy. In addition, he solves a whole row of so-called impossible crimes in stories by Carter Dickson, a pseudonym for John Dickson Carr. Merrivale has a large family, and in physical appearance resembles Winston Churchill.

    Further reading

  • Maureen O’Donnell

    Female

    She is the protagonist in the prize-winning Garnethill trilogy by the Scottish crime writer Denise Mina. Young Maureen is a human wreck: sexually abused by her father, her mother an alcoholic, her brother a drug dealer. She has spent time in a mental hospital, and started a relationship with her psychiatrist. But she is stubborn and determined, and struggles to solve the problems and crimes she comes across.

    Further reading

  • Martine Poirot

    Female

    An investigating judge in the fictive little Belgian town Villette-sur-Meuse, where she lives with her husband, the Swedish Professor Thomas Héger, a specialist in Medieval History, and (eventually) their two children. Martine Poirot – the author Ingrid Hedström is very fond of whodunnnits à la Agatha Christie – is 34 years old when we meet her for the first time. She is attractive and picks her clothes carefully as well as being a skilful and stubborn crime investigator.

    Further reading