Sample of literary figures
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Harry Bosch
Male
He is actually called Hieronymus Bosch, but calls himself – for understandable reasons – Harry. His mother was a prostitute and was murdered; his father is a well-known lawyer whom he first met as an adult. Harry Bosch was a soldier and then became a police officer, mainly in Los Angeles. And he was also the main character in a whole row of detective stories by Michael Connelly.
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Jackson Brodie
Male
He is a middle-aged divorced detective, former soldier and police officer, born in Yorkshire but living in London despite the fact that he has never liked southern England. So he is happy to travel north, and some of Kate Atkinson’s novels about him are set in Scotland. Jackson Brodie’s strength as a detective does not lie in logical reasoning, but in his empathy with the afflicted: the victims of crime and their loved ones.
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Cato Isaksen
Male
Inspector Cato Isaksen is successful at work, but his private life is a mess. Unni Lindell’s books are more than detective stories, they also portray Isaksen’s struggle to get comfortable with his male identity and not to let his private life interfere too much with his job. It adds an extra dimension to the books.
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Flavia de Luce
Female
In the 1950s, the motherless Flavia de Luce was not highly regarded by her father and sisters. She was indeed a rather ordinary and everyday 11-12-year-old (with dental braces), but mature for her age, and determined too, with a mind of her own and smart, and she busied herself with nasty-smelling chemistry experiments. Besides, she solved murders – for which the police resented her – in the books that Alan Bradley has written about her.