Sample of literary figures
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Lisa Mattei
Female
In 2005, Leif G.W. Persson wrote about the young detective inspector Lisa Mattei; ten years later, she is a middle-aged operations manager for the Swedish security services. She made a rapid career, but has a bad conscience because she rarely has time to be with her family, her husband Johan and her daughter Ella. She has private means, and is something of a connoisseur when it comes to clothes, for example. But she is also a gifted and skilful police officer.
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Çetin Ìkmen
Male
He is a self-willed detective in the police force of his birth city Istanbul, which he loves with all his heart. But he is well aware of the city’s less savoury sides, and the memory of crimes he has investigated has meant that he chain-smokes and also drinks too much – which greatly upsets his Muslim wife Fatma. Together the couple have a lot of children and the number steadily grows in Barbara Nadel’s books about him.
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Erlendur
Male
A detective inspector in Reykjavík, and the main character in a row of police novels by Arnaldur Indriðason. Erlendur – his surname, Sveinsson, is rarely named as is customary in Iceland – is a skilful and empathetic police officer, but rather tired and sometimes anxiety-ridden. One reason is that he left his family when the children were small, for reasons that he can’t himself remember. His ex-wife still hates him for this, and both his son and his daughter ended up abusing drugs.
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Joe (Joseph) O'Loughlin
Male
He has had a successful career as a psychologist. But Joseph (Joe) O'Loughlin has reason to be depressed: he has separated from his wife Julianne, who later dies, and he suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Nor is he handsome: he has a long, but pear-shaped nose, watery brown eyes and a pale complexion. He also becomes involved in several cases of severe crime in novels by Michael Robotham.