Character List for The Alienist

The Team

John Schuyler Moore—the narrator; a thirty-something journalist for The New York Times

Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—an alienist (that is, a psychiatrist) and friend of Moore’s; they’ve known each other since college where Kreizler studied under *Professor William James

Sara Howard—an old friend of Moore’s who’s working as a secretary at Police Headquarters but has ambitions to be a police detective; [her ambition is more than a decade ahead of the times since the first woman police officer (not even a detective), Alice Stebbins Wells, isn’t hired until 1910 (by the L.A.P.D.)]

Sergeant Marcus Isaacson—a newly hired detective with a specialty in criminal science, backed up by his previous studies in law and his work for Pinkertons

Detective Sergeant Lucius Isaacson—Marcus’s brother and a newly hired detective with a specialty in forensic medicine, drawing on his medical education and his work for Pinkertons

The Police and Government Officials

*Theodore Roosevelt—head of the Board of Commissioners of New York City’s Police Department (1895–97)

*Colonel William Lafayette Strong—New York City mayor (1895–97) who appointed Roosevelt as police commissioner in his largely unsuccessful war against graft

Detective Sergeant Patrick Connor—a detective who works at Police Headquarters where Roosevelt has his office

Sergeant Flynn—a police sergeant from the 15th Precinct who might have too-close ties to Biff Ellison

*Thomas Byrnes—the creator and former head of the police’s Division of Detectives, who had retired when Roosevelt was appointed but was still influential in some circles; he popularized the practice of “rogues’ gallery”

Moore’s Acquaintances & Family

*Jacob “Jake” Riis—a photographer and journalist at the rival New York Tribune

*Joseph Lincoln “Link” Steffens—an investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era (early 20th Century)

Harriet—Moore’s grandmother’s housekeeper

Kreizler’s Household

Stevie “The Stovepipe” Taggert—a reformed juvenile delinquent who works as a driver and errand boy for Kreizler

Cyrus Montrose—a former patient of Kreizler’s who now works for him as a sort of bodyguard and driver

Mary Palmer—a former patient of Kreizler’s with motor aphasia and agraphia (unable to speak and write), who now works as Kreizler’s housekeeper

The Victims

Giorgio Santorelli—aka “Gloria”; a 13-year-old Italian immigrant who sometimes works as a cross-dressing prostitute out of Biff Ellison’s Paresis Hall

Benjamin and Sofia Zweig—a brother and sister found murdered 3 years earlier whose murders seem similar to the Santorelli murder; Kreizler has their bodies exhumed for forensic study as one of his first acts in investigating the Santorelli case

Ali ibn-Ghazi—aka “Fatima”; a 14-year-old Syrian immigrant who’s been sold by his father to Scotch Ann at the Golden Rule

Joseph—a 10-year-old boy prostitute from the Golden Rule who gives Moore information about a man that ibn-Ghazi trusted and called “the saint”

Ernst Lohmann—a 14-year-old German immigrant who works as a cross-dressing prostitute out of the Black and Tan

Others Connected with Bars and Brothels

*James T. “Biff” Ellison—owns Paresis Hall, one of three or four saloons in New York’s Lower East Side that catered to prostitution

*Paul Kelly—works for Ellison and oversees operations at Paresis Hall

*Jack McManus—aka “Eat ‘Em Up”; a former prizefighter who is currently Paul Kelly’s “enforcer”

Scotch Ann—runs the Golden Rule, a basement brothel of cross-dressing boy prostitutes

*Frank Stephenson—owns the Black and Tan, another of the saloons catering to prostitution

Members of New York Establishment and Society

*Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan—Roman Catholic archbishop of New York who seems to be playing a part in thwarting investigations into the “boy murders”; [historically, he was rebuked by the Vatican (1887) for neglecting the spiritual needs of Italian immigrants]

*Bishop Henry Codman Potter—bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York who seems to be playing a part in thwarting investigations into the “boy murders”; [historically, he was a champion of the working class and labor unions]

*Anthony Comstock—a “special agent” of the United States Postal Service in New York [and author of the 1873 U.S. Comstock Act, which makes it a crime to deliver “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material by U.S. mail]

*John Pierpont Morgan—a financier and investment banker with outsized local influence; [historically, he assisted the government in plans that averted several financial crises]

Others Interviewed by Team During Investigation

*Jesse Harding Pomeroy—an inmate (since the age of 14) at Sing Sing Prison for the murder and torture of children; [note that the historical Pomeroy was never incarcerated at Sing Sing]

*Franz Boas—a friend of Kreizler’s and the assistant curator of ethnography at the American Museum of Natural History in New York

*Dr. Clark Wissler—an anthropologist/ethnologist and assistant to Boas; [historically, he was not hired at AMNH until almost a decade after the events of this book, after which he eventually replaced Boas]

Hobart Weaver—a friend of Moore’s who works in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.; he helps Moore locate the file that identifies Corporal John Beecham, a military officer who had been a patient at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in D.C.

Adam Dury—a farmer in Newton, MA, originally from New Paltz, NY; his parents, the Reverend and Mrs. Victor Dury, had been murdered years before in New Paltz, and his younger brother, Japheth, had supposedly been kidnapped by Indians and never found

Captain Frederick Miller—an Army officer serving at Fort Yates, ND; a decade earlier, he’d discharged Corporal Beecham to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital following an incident in Chicago

Charles H. Murray—superintendent of the Census Bureau in New York

Other Historic Figures

*Herman Webster Mudgett—aka “Dr. H. H. Holmes”; a serial killer on death row in Philadelphia (and reported executed in Chapter 26) whom Moore’s grandmother worries about; [find an account of Dr. H. H. Holmes’s murder spree, coinciding with the 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition in Chicago, in Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City (2003)]

* Indicates real, historic persons; for interesting real-life backgrounds, check out their biographies in Wikipedia

March 2026 Author’s Video for Marie Tierney

 

Deadly Animals

March 2026
Marie Tierney
Deadly Animals

Character List for Deadly Animals

The Bonney Family and Related Characters

Ava Bonney—the protagonist; a precocious 14-year-old, fascinated by animal anatomy and decomposition

Veronica Bonney—Ava’s younger sister

Colleen Bonney—Ava and Veronica’s mother, who’s divorced from their father and in a relationship with Trevor Bax

Michael “Mike” Bonney—Ava and Veronica’s father, who’s remarried

Ashleen Scullion—aka Nanny Ash; Ava and Veronica’s grandmother (Colleen’s mother)

Orla Scullion—Nanny Ash’s deceased sister, whom Ava resembles

Trevor Bax—Colleen’s current boyfriend, a mechanic; Ava and Veronica dislike him because he’s sneaky

Luke Bax—Trevor’s 16-year-old son from a previous marriage, whom Ava and Veronica like

John Eades—Ava’s best friend; he goes to a different school than she does

The Police

Detective Sargeant Seth “Skip” Delahaye—a detective with the West Midlands Police, in charge of the cases of the missing boys

Detective Constable Steve Lines—Delahaye’s partner on the cases of the missing boys

Woman Detective Constable Olivia Gibson—a detective who helps with investigations on the cases of the missing boys; she was formerly an investigator for a lawyer who handled lost-heir and inheritance cases

Police Constable Daryl Morgan—a police constable with the West Midlands Police

Detective Inspector Perrin—Delahaye’s boss

Chief Inspector Harry Marshall—Delahaye’s former boss, now retired, who knows some background on the Banlock Farm dogs

Mr. Trent—a forensic scientist and the chief scene-of-the-crime (SOC) officer

Professor Angela Simmons—the police pathologist who does the autopsies

Towler—Simmons’s autopsy assistant

Missing and Murdered Boys

Michael Anthony “Mickey” Grant—a 14-year-old and the first boy to go missing; Ava finds his body near her neighborhood when she goes to check on a dead fox she’s been studying

Bryan “Bry” Shelton—a 6-year-old and the second boy to go missing when he takes the trash out one night; Ava finds his body on the edge of a nearby stream

Gary Clarke—a 9-year-old boy who disappears into the woods during a game of Hunter; the third boy to go missing, his body is found in an abandoned air-raid shelter on an old garden plot

Keith “Trigger” Magaw—a 12-year-old leader of a gang of men and boys who firebomb Bob Aster’s home; later he goes missing from Beacon House, a children’s home where he’s been placed because his alcoholic mother can’t care for him

Other Neighborhood Characters

Nathaniel Marlowe—a 16-year-old schoolmate of Ava’s who works as a delivery boy with a bike and a trailer; he’s also a school prefect

Paul Ballow—a member of a punk band; his girlfriend Lucy “Loops,” their singer

Matty Ballow—Paul’s younger brother and a friend of Ava’s

Maya—a friend of Ava’s who often walks Veronica home from school when Ava’s class is kept in detention

Shawn Temperton—a classmate and friend of Ava’s; he’s the one who throws the Molotov cocktail when a gang of men and boys firebomb Bob Aster’s home

Tom Shelton—a 15-year-old classmate and friend of Ava’s; he’s Bryan Shelton’s older brother

Alan Shelton—Tom and Bryan’s father, who’s convinced Bob Aster is guilty

Kelly Shelton—Tom and Bryan’s mother

Karl Jones—a prefect at Ava’s school who bullies her

Bob “the Nonce” Aster—a known pedophile who lives in the neighborhood

Mrs. Cutter—Aster’s next-door neighbor

Pete Ancona—the neighborhood ice cream man and a suspect

Mack Hardy—owner of Hardy’s Gifts, a store that sells high-end candy

Harry Ca Nab—a character from folklore; the signature on graffiti poetry that begins to appear around the neighborhood after boys start going missing

Banlock Farm

Neville Coleman—an octogenarian who owns the unoccupied Banlock Farm, a former dog-breeding farm; he’s currently in Joseph Sheldon Hospital and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s; he has not lived on the farm for at least 10 years

Sophia Coleman—Neville’s deceased wife

Tisephone “Tiss” Coleman—Neville’s deceased daughter; she died in an automobile accident 13 years earlier

Zasha—Coleman’s best dog, also dead

Marlowe & Son Breakers Yard

Nick “Jip” Marlowe—owner of the Marlowe & Son junk yard and Nathaniel’s father

Minty—one of Nick Marlowe’s long-time employees

Tim—one of Nick Marlowe’s long-time employees

Hospital Personnel

Mrs. Brown—the hospital manager at Joseph Sheldon Hospital

Maureen—an attendant at the hospital who seems to be able to manage Neville Coleman’s moods

Dr. Walter Tremblay—a specialist in psychiatric disorders whom Delahaye interviews