Sample of literary figures
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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.
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Sandy (Alejandro) Stern
Male
His father was a doctor who emigrated from Europe to Argentina. Alejandro ‘Sandy’ Stern moved on to the USA when he was a teenager, and there became successful as a skilful and empathetic defence lawyer. His greatest sorrow in life in that his wife, Clara, the mother of his children, committed suicide after 31 years of marriage. He has a role – sometimes central – in a handful of Scott Turow’s crime novels.
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Kristina Vendel
Female
Female detective inspector with the police in Huddinge, Stockholm. Her father had fled from East Germany to Sweden; Kristina Vendel’s marriage to Johan is in trouble and eventually breaks up. She has light hair, grey-green eyes, and studied Philosophy before she started at Police College. She has a tough time at work, and is often abused in several ways, Theodor Kallifatides tells us.
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Gavin Troy
Male
Troy is a detective in the fictive English county of Midsomer, and Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby’s right hand. In Caroline Graham’s novel, Tory is a clever and intelligent police officer, but his prejudices – he is, for example, a homophobe – and rather abrupt manner speak against him. In the TV series <i>Midsomer Murders</i>, his personality has been ‘corrected’ and he is decidedly more sympathetic, and is still a skilled investigator.