Wow, Kovid - incredibly quick as usual, thanks!
Your suggestion works, but it requires the user to remember that there is a problem with unusual characters in that search string and use a wildchard to circumvent it. It would still be nice to have a solution that works even when the user types a less-than-exact spelling of the search term, as could happen with Nordic names and other names where the simplified spelling is widespread - such as "Indriðason/Indridason", "Åsa/Asa", "Nesbø/Nesbo", "Miéville/Mieville".