Sample of literary figures
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Beate Stein
Female
A young police detective in Dortmund, blond and with green eyes, and tough enough (or more than so) to survive and thrive in a male-dominated workplace. Beate Stein is a heterosexual feminist who prefers to put men behind bars rather than women, but she never cheats in her work. Through the books by Sabine Deitmer, she has become something of a figurehead for what is known as <i>Frauen-Krimis</i>.
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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’.
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John H. Watson
Male
Sherlock Holmes’ chronicler and permanent companion in the stories by A. Conan Doyle has given his name to a particular type of character in crime fiction: a detective’s right hand, conversational partner and admiring friend is called ‘a Watson figure’. In books by other authors, Dr Watson has solved cases by himself. The ‘H’ in his name (according to Sherlockian research) stands for Hamish, the Scottish for James.
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Gunvald Larsson
Male
Born in the fancy district of Östermalm, Stockholm, in a military family that he despises, he is a Marxist, a snobby dresser, sarcastic and is quick to resort to violence. He is single, almost two metres tall, strong as a bull, has closely set eyes and has the habit of picking between his teeth with a paper knife. Apart from this, Gunvald Larsson is an important member in the police group around Martin Beck in most of the books by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö.