The Lantern Men – Characters

SPOILERS!!!

These are the regular characters in this series of mysteries:

• Dr Ruth Galloway (49) is a forensic archaeologist who has worked with the police in Norfolk several times. Ruth had a complicated relationship with her parents because of their religion, but in a previous book her mother died, and they managed to make their peace in the end. Now Ruth seems to have a closer relationship with her father, and she misses her mother. Ruth also has a peculiar relationship with Harry Nelson, the detective. In the first book they slept together, finding comfort in each other after very tragic events, and then she got pregnant and had her daughter, Kate.  Nelson’s wife eventually discovered that the baby was Nelson’s, and she forbid him from seeing Kate and Ruth again. However, when Nelson got sick, Michelle reconsidered her decision, and now he sees Kate regularly. Ruth had a short relationship with Max, another archaeologist, but Ruth broke up with him because she realised she wasn’t in love with him. Some time later she met Frank, a American historian who has a programme on TV, and Ruth had a fling with him, but when he asked her to move to America with him, she refused. Frank returned to England some time later, and two years ago he asked her to move in with him. So Ruth accepted a job in Cambridge and has been living with him for two years. However, in this book we see Ruth having anxiety attacks because she is not really happy with Frank. At the end of the book Frank asks her to marry him, but she has decided to return to Norfolk.
• DCI Harry Nelson (50) is the head of the crime department in Norfolk, and he and Ruth first met when he asked for her professional advice in a case. He and Ruth have a complicated relationship because they have had sex on different occasions now, after one of which she got pregnant.  Nelson loves his wife, but he also loves Ruth. When Michelle discovered the truth about Kate, she banned him from seeing Ruth or Kate, but after he fell seriously sick, Michelle agreed to let him see Kate on a regular basis. Harry also has two teenage daughters. When in a previous book Nelson discovered that his wife had had a fling with Tim for a year, he felt hurt and betrayed, but he could not begrudge Michelle what he had already done with Ruth. Nelson considered leaving Michelle for Ruth, but then his wife announced she was pregnant, so he couldn’t leave her. Now Nelson has a son, who he is very proud of.
• Kate Galloway is Ruth’s sweet daughter. She is  nine. Kate is really lovely, talkative and determined. Now Kate is aware of her family situation, but she doesn’t seem bothered. She is just happy to have two older half-sisters and her baby brother.
• Flint is Ruth’s cat.
• Cathbad (Michael Malone) (50) is Ruth’s friend. He is a druid and tends to wear colourful tunics and cloaks. He and Judy Johnson are now together and have two children. Their relationship started when Judy and Cathbad were looking after Kate when she was a baby. They slept together just before she got married, and  after her wedding, Judy continued her affair with Cathbad. She had her first child while married, but Cathbad knew the boy was his. After a couple of years in her marriage, Judy realised that she was not happy and decided to leave Darren. Cathbad had to make some changes in his life for Judith. He used to live in a caravan, but now he and Judy have a house where they live with their two children, Michael and Miranda.
• DI Judy Johnson (39) is part of Nelson’s team. She is clever and Nelson trusts her more than any of his other officers. Judy is separated from her first husband and living with Cathbad and their two children. In the past, she had an affair with Cathbad, which started just before her wedding, and the child she had was his. After she realised that she didn’t love her husband the way she loved Cathbad, she decided to break up with her husband and start a new life with the man she really loves. Now Judy has had a promotion and becomes a DI, and she sometimes wonders if she should move from Norfolk where she has lived all her life.
• Frank Barker is the historian Ruth has a relationship with. When they first met, he wanted to have a proper relationship with her, but she refused because she admitted to herself that she was in love with Nelson. After Frank returned to England, he asked Ruth to move in with him, and she finally agreed. However, after two years Ruth feels crowded, and at the end of the book Frank asks her to marry him, but he understands that he is returning to Norfolk and her old life, which does not include him. 
• DI Dave Clough (38) was part of Nelson’s team, but after he was promoted to DI, he was transferred to Cambridge, where he leads his own team. Clough is socially clumsy and narrow-minded.  Dave is now married to Cassandra Blackstock, and they have two children.
• Superintendent Jo Archer (39) is Nelson’s new boss. Nelson thought she would be a nice change after Whitcliff, but she proved to be difficult at first. The woman seemed to just care about the station’s reputation and about rates. Nelson even thought that she would like him to take early retirement, but now they seem to have reached an understanding, and Jo appreciates Nelson’s work.
• Michelle Nelson (48) is Harry’s wife. She is very attractive and works as a hairdresser.  Michelle had an affair with Tim, who was part of her husband’s team, for several months. Michelle met Tim when her husband invited him to dinner, and then they saw each other regularly at their gym. Their affair finished when Michelle agreed to sleep with him but backed out at the last moment and realised that she couldn’t risk her marriage like that.  Nelson discovered her indiscretion, but she made  him see that he did much worse when he slept with Ruth and fathered her child. The affair with Tim consummated when he visited her several months ago. Michelle got pregnant, and during her pregnancy she was not sure if the baby was her husband’s or Tim’s, and in the end little George is Nelson’s.
• Laura Nelson is Harry’s twenty-six-year-old daughter. Laura trained to be a teacher, and now she works in a school.
• Rebecca Nelson is Harry’s twenty–four-year-old daughter.
• Asif is Rebecca’s boyfriend.
• DS Tanya Fuller is also another police officer in Nelson’s team. Tanya is ambitious, and  she is also resourceful and clever. Tanya is gay, and her partner is Petra, a teacher.
• DC Tony Zhang is a new addition to Nelson’s team. He is of Chinese origin.
• Cassandra Blackstock – Clough is is married to  Clough and they have two children.
• George Nelson is Harry’s baby boy
• Bruno is Nelson’s dog.
• Thing is Cathbad’s dog.
• Shona MacLean is Ruth’s best friend. Very attractive and red-haired, she is the head of the English department at the university. Now Shona is in a relationship with Phil, Ruth’s boss, and they live together after he left his wife. Shona and Phil have a son who is seveb.
• Spencer Clough is Clough and Cassandra’s three-year-old son.
• Amélie Clough is Dave and Cassandra’s baby girl.
• Phil Trent is Ruth’s boss and Shona’s partner. Ruth doesn’t like him very much. In this book he has a heart attack after the murderer attacks him to steal his laptop. At the end of the book Phil is considering to take early retirement, and he encourages Ruth to go for his job. 
• Louis Trent is Phil and Shona’s seven-year-old son.
• Michael (8) is Judy and Cathbad’s son.
• Miranda is Judy and Cathbad’s five-year-old daughter.
• Darren Foster is Judy’s ex-husband.
• Tom Henty is the desk sergeant.
• PC Rocky Taylor is an officer in Nelson’s team. Nelson thinks that he is clumsy and not very clever.
• Sandra is Kate’s childminder.
• Clara is Kate’s usual babysitter.
• Maddie Henderson (26) is Cathbad’s daughter by a previous relationship. Now Maddie is a journalist working for a local newspaper.
• Arthur Galloway is Ruth’s father.
• Bella Parkinson is Arthur’s new woman.
• Sue Trent is Phil’s ex-wife.
• Irish Ted Houllihan (Red Cross) is an archaeologist who Ruth often works with.
• Janet Meadows is a local historian. Janet is a transsexual who doesn’t hide her condition.
• Chris Stephenson is the police pathologist. Nelson hates him because the man is full of air and too arrogant.
• Mike Halloran is the head of forensics.
• Leah (27) is Nelson’s PA.
• Madge Hudson is the criminal profiler. Nelson does not think much of her and her opinions.
• PC Jane Campion is an uniformed police officer.
• DS Tim Heathfield (32) was the sergeant who tranferred from Blackpool after working with Nelson on a case. Tim transferred to Essex when Nelson discovered the affair he had with Michelle. Tim kept seeing Michelle every time he visited Norfolk, and this time they slept together. Tim died at the end of the last book, trying to save Michelle who was being threatened by a criminal wanting to take his revenge on Nelson.
• Bob Woonunga is Ruth’s neighbour. He is from Australia and belongs to the elginists, a spiritual group.
• Erik Anderssen was Ruth’s professor, and she used to be his best pupil. Ruth admired Erik but things changed when she discovered that he had an affair with her friend Shona in a previous book. Now Erik is dead, but Ruth keeps remembering him fondly. In this book his son, Leif, goes to Norfolk.
• Magda Anderssen is Erik’s wife. In this book she reappears when Leif takes Cathbad and Ruth to the stone circle in somerset. Magda shows them a baby, a daughter of Erik, who was conceived through artificial insemination.
• Freya Anderssen is the baby that Magda presents to Cathbad and Ruth in the stone circle. She is Erik’s daughter. Magda used Erik’s frozen sperm and a surrogate mother.
• Peter used to be Ruth’s boyfriend, but they broke up ten years ago. Peter married someone else and they had a child. In the first book Peter returned after leaving his wife, intending to get back with Ruth, but she refused him. so he got back with his wife.
• Maureen Nelson (77) is Harry’s mother. She and Harry have a strange relationship. Maureen is high maintenance as she keeps nagging about everything.
• Maeve is Nelson’s sister. She is ten years older than he is, and already has a grandchild.
• Charlie is Maeve’s granddaughter.
• Louise is Michelle’s mother. She is sixty, and Nelson describes her as attractive and agreeable.
• Delilah Henderson used to be Cathbad’s girlfriend when she was very young. Delilah appears in the first book as she is the mother of Scarlet, one of the girls that were kidnapped and the only one who was murdered.
• Simon Galloway is Ruth’s brother. He is two years older than she is.
• Jack and George Galloway are Ruth’s nephews. Jack is twelve and George 10.
• Cathy Galloway is Ruth’s sister-in-law, but Ruth doesn’t like her very much.
• Chief Superintendent Gerry Whitcliffe was Nelson’s boss, but now he has a new job in the Met.
• Jean Galloway was Ruth’s mother. She died in the last book when she suffered two strokes.
• Father Patrick Hennessey is the priest who ran an orphanage in a case Harry and Ruth worked on. Ruth  agreed to have Kate baptised by him. In the last  book he reappeared, and he confessedfirst to Nelson and then to Ruth that in his youth he had an affair and got someone pregnant. Instead of supporting the woman, he focused on his priesthood, but now he wanted to get to know his daughter, Fiona McCallister, who was the director of a rehab clinic.

Characters in this book:

• Ivor March is the man accused of killing four women. Two of the bodies were found in his girlfriend’s garden, and his DNA was on the bodies. Ivor denied killing the women, but then he confessed to killing a young Hungarian woman due to a sexual game going wrong. When Ivor pointed at a pub garden ads the burial spot for two other women, he was accused of killing them too. In the end, he did not kill these women, but he did kill Sofia, the Hungarian young woman.
• Bob Carr is one of the men who founded the artists’ retreat with Ivor. He is the murderer of the women, and he has the delusion that he was trying to save them.
• Leonard Jenkins is the third artist who founded the retreat.
• Chantal Simmonds is Ivor’s girlfriend. She seems to be supporting her boyfriend, but in reality she was secretly seeking revenge. Chantal was actually the sister of Sophie, the woman who Ivor killed. So Chantal helped the real killer to plant Ivor’s DNA on the bodies so that he would be sent to prison.
• Chrissy Martin used to be Ivor’s wife. They separated when he started seeing Chantal. Chrissy runs a writing retreat where Ruth spent a week, and over ten years ago she, Ivor and some others ran an artists’ retreat.
• Ailsa Britain is one of the dwellers in the artist’s retreat. He was originally Bob’s girlfriend, but he eventually married Leonard even though he turned out to be gay.
• John Robertson is the gardener in Grey Walls, the writers’ retreat. He has been there for years, and tells Nelson about the strange happenings in the place when Ivor and his pals called themselves the Lantern Men and went out to find women who needed help.
• Nicola Ferris (34) and Jenny McGuire (36) are two of the women who got murdered and found in Chantal’s garden.
• Jill Prendergast was another of the women who was murdered.
• Stacy Neman was also murdered.
• Sofia Novak is the Hungarian young woman who was killed by Ivor. He claims that Sofia liked kinky sexual practices, especially strangling, and once he pressed too much. When he discovered she was dead, he panicked and decided to bury her in the garden of a pub he knew was closed.
• Heidi Lucas is a teacher who is found dead in the marshes. She was also killed by Bob, who claims he was trying to save her from her dull boyfriend. Heidi met Ivor, Bob and the others through Leonard because they both belonged to the same cycling club.
• Josh Evans was Heidi’s boyfriend.
• Larry Hanson is the porter in the Cambridge college where Ruth works. Larry used to be a potter and knew Ivor, Bob and Leonard because he had stayed at Grey Walls on some occasions.
• Miles is Leonard’s husband.