Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Maisie Dobbs

    Female

    Young, brave and intelligent private detective who started to work as a domestic when she was only 13 years old. Maisie Dobbs had a benevolent female employer, and got to study nursing and psychology. She fell in love with a doctor who was killed in the First World War, and in 1929 she started her own detective agency. Jacqueline Winspear has written more than a dozen books about her.

    Further reading

  • Vera Stanhope

    Female

    An eccentric, middle-aged, controversial detective chief inspector in Northumberland and in a series of police novels by Ann Cleeves. Stanhope is a grim lone wolf and workaholic, in part because as a child she was subjected to sexual abuse by an acquaintance of her single father. She still lives in her childhood home, drives her father’s old Landrover and solves murder cases in her own very special way.

    Further reading

  • Lars Martin Johansson

    Male

    Johansson is head of the Swedish Police. He first appears in Leif G. W. Persson’s first book <i>Grisfesten</i> and then returns in a string of novels by the author. He was previously married to Gunilla; they have two children together. After a few years he marries Pia who is 20 years younger. He is a passionate hunter and eventually dies of a stroke.

    Further reading

  • Jonny Lilja

    Male

    He is a police officer, but also a gambling addict which means he has to help the mafia. That is not the only problem for Detective Inspector Jonny Lilja in Malmö. When his ex-wife Lena is murdered, he becomes a suspect. However, he pulls himself together, stops gambling and then moves in with his adoptive daughter, Maria. He is, according to author Olle Lönneaus, middle-aged, a bit shabby-looking, with a lined face and wide mouth.

    Further reading