Jerry Cotton

 Jerry Cotton is the fictional character in a series of crime novels by many different writers in German-speaking countries and in Finland.

The novels center around the adventures of FBI agent Jerry Cotton, which take place in and around New York City. In 1954 the first novel appeared as no. 68: "Ich suchte den Gangster-Chef" (I Sought the Gang Boss) in the series "Bastei Kriminalroman". The pseudonym "Jerry Cotton" was developed in 1956 and the first novella with this name on the front-page appeared with the title "Ich jagte den Diamanten-Hai" (I hunted the Diamond Shark). In 2005 the series reached the 2500th edition, "Expenditure". Total circulation about 850 million. A group of over 100 authors write for the magazines, sold in many kiosks and over newsagents. Rolf Kalmuczak, who is the major author behind this name, made the TKKG series famous as Stefan Wolf. The motto of the series could be described as "Crime without Sex", as women arise as characters only once in a while. Important figures of the series are, besides Cotton, his partner Phil Decker, FBI-chief John D. High, Annie Geraldo, Zeerookah, June Clark, Roby O'Hara, Myrna, Windermeere and his Smith & Wesson, a 38 Caliber Smith & Wesson Special. Jerry Cotton also drives a red Jaguar E-type, built in 1966. Even though Jerry Cotton novels are considered trivial literature by some people, the FBI agent has a faithful fan community (just like his equally long-lived Science Fiction counterpart, Perry Rhodan). Several Jerry Cotton novels were adapted as radio plays. One of the few official FBI pages in German states that Jerry Cotton indeed is a fictional agent and therefore it doesn't make sense to write fan-letters to him. He is mentioned in the lyrics of a song by Udo Lindenberg, where it says "Er findet Jerry Cotton auch sehr stark," meaning that the character of the song, an adolescent boy who repeatedly runs away from home, enjoys these particular stories.