Meny

Sample of literary figures

  • Sergeant Santos

    Male

    It is not clear what Santos’ first name is. He is the head of the police department in a little community outside the city of Salvador in Brazil, where his creator, Kjell Eriksson, also lives nowadays. Santos’ stout wife is called Zelita and they have five children together. Hardened by the corruption in his native country, he prefers to drink beer and lie in his hammock, but now and then he is obliged to work – and then he is very successful.

    Further reading

  • Alan Banks

    Male

    Detective Inspector Banks works in the fictional town of Eastvale in Swainsdale, a fictional region based on Yorkshire. He is the calm and systematic protagonist in a series of novels and short stories by the British author Peter Robinson. DI Banks likes model railways, sixties rock and his colleague Annie Cabbot, with whom he has had an off and on relationship after divorcing his wife Sandra.

    Further reading

  • Maria Wern

    Female

    Maria Wern is a young sergeant who balances crime investigations with family life, including an insufferable husband. She later moves to the island of Gotland where she continues to solve crime. The author, Anna Jansson, has also written a number of young adult detective novels that feature Wern’s son, Emil.

    Further reading

  • 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.

    Further reading