Kay Scarpetta – Chief Medical Examiner of Richmond, Virginia. Consulting pathologist for ATF.
Lucy Farinelli – Kay's niece. She and Jo went undercover in Miami against the Italian One-Sixty-Fiver cartel. During a takedown, they were ambushed and they had to fight their way out. She killed two of the gangsters and accidentally shot Jo in the leg.
Jo Sanders – DEA agent. Lucy's lover. She got shot in the leg during the ambush.
Pete Marino – Captain in the Richmond Police Department. He was transferred from being a homicide detective to a shift commander by Diane Bray.
Jay Talley – ATF liaison at Interpol, France.
Chuck Ruffin – Kay's morgue supervisor. According to Kay, he used to be very diligent in his duties. But during the events of the book, he was in cahoots with Diane Bray to mess up Kay's office, to make her look bad. He did this because he had always wanted to be a police officer, and getting into Bray's good books may boost his chances. He was also in liaison with Diane Bray and he stole narcotics, and anti-depressants from the morgue for her, which she sold into the black market.
Rene Anderson – Homicide detective in Richmond Police Department. She used to work in Vice, and Diane Bray transferred her over to work under her, as she knows where to sell the stolen pills from Chuck Ruffin. She hated working for Bray due to the way she was treated.
Le Loup Garou – French for The Werewolf, he was the elder brother of Thomas Chandonne, but all his life, he was never exposed to the outside world, for fear of humiliating the Chandonne Crime Family. He had a deformed face, with baby hair, about seven to nine inches long, all over his body. He bathes at the river in both France and Richmond almost every night, in the futile hopes that the water from the rivers may cure him. He was blinded by Formalin during a struggle with Scarpetta.
Victims
Seven unnamed women in France– Ages range from twenty-one to fifty-two. All facial structures were broken. There were subdural hematomas, bleeding over the brain and into the chest cavity. There were multiple bite marks. They were all found barefoot, with their clothing ripped open from the waist up.
Thomas Chandonne – Son of a powerful, rich family in Paris. He was found in a container at a port in Richmond. Heavily decomposed, his cause of death undetermined.
Kim Luong – Thirty-year-old Asian female. She worked as a convenience store clerk. She was shot in her neck, where she was paralyzed, but still alive, before being brutally beaten and bleeding to death. She was found barefoot, with her blouse and brassiere torn apart.
Diane Bray – Deputy Chief in Richmond Police Department. A highly attractive woman who seduces her way to the top. She seems to be very rich, staying in a well furnished house and drives a Jaguar, but it was later found out she got her money from peddling narcotics and anti-depressants in the black market. Very unpopular with her colleagues and subordinates, due to her pretentious and malicious character. She was found on the floor of her bedroom, half naked from the waist up, beaten to death by a chipping hammer, a tool used in masonry. She was so badly beaten her facial structures were gone.
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