  Odd-odd nuclei around double shell closures are a direct source of
information on the proton-neutron interaction between valence nucleons. We have
performed shell-model calculations for doubly odd nuclei close to $^{208}$Pb,
$^{132}$Sn and $^{100}$Sn using realistic effective interactions derived from
the CD-Bonn nucleon-nucleon potential. The calculated results are compared with
the available experimental data, attention being focused on particle-hole and
particle-particle multiplets. While a good agreement is obtained for all the
nuclei considered, a detailed analysis of the matrix elements of the effective
interaction shows that a stronger core-polarization contribution seems to be
needed in the particle-particle case.
