Before I get any further into this story, I thought I would put out a list (I was going to say short list, but that would be a huge lie) of all the characters who seem to be somehow tied together in this little London town because of Edwin’s urge to off his wife. So here goes:
Edwin: master plotter (Can we just call him Ed, already? Thanks!)
Eleanor: unfortunate wife to Ed, who bit the dust fairly early
Drew: Ed and Eleanor’s son who passed away
Chelsea: The daughter who is now motherless
Betty: Ed’s secretary
Derek Wood: Newspaper owner, and former employer of Ed, until he let him go
Caroline Flack: Ed’s newly hired divorce attorney (talk about a bad day; divorce papers, then getting canned)
Wood’s personal assistant: so-far unnamed, but the way this story is going, likely to be the plotter of someone else’s demise or a poor sap to get offed pretty soon
Mark: Ed’s brother-in-law, Eleanor’s brother
Palmer: another employee of the paper, in the advertising department (so-far unimportant, but why else did the authors’ give him a name?)
Jeremy Kyle: television news reporter, and by Ed’s comments, Eleanor’s boyfriend?
Yosef Gershwin: father to a son with tay-sachs disease, who vows he will not let him suffer
son: not yet named, but obviously on the wrong end of his father’s plot to “not let him suffer”
Vanhi: prostitute in London, and killer of Eleanor
Jaison: Vanhi’s boyfriend
Mr. Pockmarked-Face: dweller in Vanhi’s nightmares, she is determined to get rid of him for good (which is how Eleanor ended up dead, and Ed finds himself in quite the pickle)
David Morton: Detective Chief Inspector, trying to solve one murder, likely to have the bodies piling up on his desk fairly quickly as things seem to be getting out of hand
David’s technician: another unnamed, but who knows, he may have a whole chapter to himself in a few pages, so I am mentioning him
Dr. Jensen: A psychologist who suspects everyone, he is right to think Ed has something to hide from studying his phone conversations and interviews
Peter K. Sudgen (Jones): Racist Bigot Idiot (my words, not the authors’) who is determined to get rid of his foreign neighbors (His name was Sudgen-Jones for a minute in the book, then it disappeared. Honestly, I am not lying)
Mrs. Sudgen: apparent wimp of a woman and enabler of her Racist Bigot Idiot husband
Barry Chambers: lovelorn fool who is going to propose to Jessica, if she ever shows up for their dinner reservation
Jessica: Dumper of Barry by the next weekend, and likely to be on the receiving end of someone’s poorly-planned execution plot
So there you have it, less than halfway done with this story and it has more characters then a quiet game of “Guess Who?”
I will have this book finished before the weekend is out. I have to say, I am rather curious now how Ed is going to get himself out of this mess (or try to, I should say) but it is still a bit of a difficult read.
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