Inspector Hazlerigg is a police detective created by the British mystery writer Michael Gilbert who appears in six novels published between 1947 and 1958, as well as in 20 short stories.
Although he plays a key role in each of the novels, he is far from being the main character in all of them; in some, particularly Death Has Deep Roots and Fear to Tread, his page appearances are quite limited.
In his first appearance, in the Golden Age mystery novel Close Quarters, which takes place in 1937, Hazlerigg is a Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard in London.
Thirty years before the events in Close Quarters, and before going to London, he had attended a preparatory school of which he now remembers little except that the masters had seemed much happier than the boys.
A few pages further, after he raises an imaginary gun to his shoulder and fires it, a character thinks that he looks like "a jolly red-faced farmer out for a day's sport".