Sample of literary figures
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Barlach
Male
Although he only features in two (short) novels by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Inspector Barlach – no first name is ever mentioned – is one of the most famous policemen in literature. He is old, worn out and unmarried, works in the police force in Bern and has stomach cancer, which he knows will lead to his death within a year. With his great knowledge of human nature and his intuition, he works on his investigations.
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John Bright
Male
He is a detective inspector in Kentish Town just outside London, where he gets to experience everything from a decomposing female corpse in a bathtub to gang-shootings. John Bright is small of stature, dark, likes to wear a shoddy leather jacket, and (according to author Maureen O’Brien) looks more like a criminal than a police officer. He can be very irritable, doesn’t like travelling and has a patient girlfriend called Jude.
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Lise Delorme
Female
She is young and beautiful and she is a skilful police officer. When Lise Delorme is sent to work in Algonquin Bay in Ontario in Canada, it is not only to work on cases of violent crime, but also – in secret – to investigate a suspected network of bribery in the local police force. She succeeds, and starts to work with Detective John Cardinal in Giles Blunt’s novels. And a fragile relationship slowly grows between Cardinal and Delorme…
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Dudley Smith
Male
Police officer in Los Angeles in four of James Ellroy’s novels. Dudley Smith was born in Ireland, he is tall and broad shouldered, and goes all in brown, one could say: he has brown hair cut very short, brown eyes and he usually wears a shabby, brown suit. Few police officers in crime fiction have been described as so unsympathetic: he is an egoistic and violent bully and, it turns out, a murderer. And he is happy with that!