C. Auguste Dupin prefect "G", who appears in all three stories seeking his counsel. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", Dupin investigates the murder of a mother and daughter in Paris. He investigates another murder in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt". This story was based on the true story of Mary Rogers, a saleswoman at a cigar store in Manhattan whose body was found floating in the Hudson River in 1841. Dupin's final appearance, in "The Purloined Letter", features an investigation of a letter stolen from the French queen. Poe called this story "perhaps, the best of my tales of ratiocination". Throughout
Jack Spratt (fictional detective) Inspector with the Reading, Berkshire "Nursery Crimes Division", with his assistant Sergeant Mary Mary (another nursery rhyme character). Spratt and Mary were originally introduced into the alternate Fforde universe in the Thursday Next novel "The Well of Lost Plots" (2003) before taking over their own "Nursery Crimes" series: Jack Spratt (fictional detective) Jack Spratt is the protagonist in a series of alternate history science fiction fantasy novels by Jasper Fforde. He was named after the character from the English nursery rhyme. As revealed in "The Big Over Easy", for example, he hates eating fat, and was once married to a