February 2026 Author’s Video for Andrey Kurkov

The Silver Bone 

February 2026

Andrey Kurkov

The Silver Bone

Character List for The Silver Bone

Samson’s Family

Samson Theophilovich Kolechko—the protagonist; a 20-something young man who must fend for himself when is father’s murder and political upheaval leaves him orphaned and uncertain; he becomes a police investigator

Verusya Kolechko—Samson’s sister, who died five years earlier

Zinaida Fyodorovna Kolechko—Samson’s mother, who died five years earlier

?? Kolechko—Samson’s (never named) father, beheaded at the beginning of the story; he had been a bookkeeper for a trading company until the previous year

People Who Help Samson

Dr. Nikolay Nikolaevich Vatrukhin—an eye doctor who treats Samson’s severed-ear wound

Sivokon—Samson’s father’s tailor, who later helps him solve his first case

Nadezhda Sigismundovich—a woman that Samson’s yard-sweeper’s widow introduces him to as a potential renter since she has a good job in the Provincial Bureau of Statistics nearby

Trofim Sigismundovich—Nadezhda’s father, about 50 years old

Lyudmila Sigismundovich—Nadezhda’s mother

Alexander Valentinovich Babukin—a former classmate of Samson’s who gives him information about jobs with agencies under “the new regime”

Employees at the Police Station on Tarasivska Street

Nayden—the head of the police station on Tarasivska (near Samson’s flat) who is impressed with Samson’s report-writing ability and gives him a job as police investigator in the newly re-forming police station

Konstantin “Kostya” Pasechny—the officer at the police station who had requisitioned Samson’s father’s desk

Vasyl—an elderly assistant at the police station; he’s spent most of his life as a clerk at the station and has managed to survive the regime change

Sergius “Sergey” Kholodny—a former priest and now with the police

Semyon Glukhov—a soldier and guard at the police station

People Connected to Samson’s First Case

Anton Tsvigun—a Red Army soldier who is billeted in Samson’s flat by Red Army requisition; later, Samson has Anton arrested for theft, creating his first case

Fyodor Bravada—a Red Army soldier who is billeted in Samson’s flat by Red Army requisition; later, Samson has Fyodor arrested for theft, creating his first case

Grigory Sheburshin—aka Grishka Fertichny; a Red Army soldier who’s working with Anton

Golikov—a cobbler whose materials were found among the stolen goods confiscated from Anton and Fyodor

Valerian Sergeyevich Paddomov—Nadezhda’s boss at the Provincial Bureau of Statistics who provides Samson with Kyiv census records

Friedrich Franzevich Balzer—a 52-year-old German tailor whose materials were found among the stolen goods confiscated from Anton and Fyodor

Luc Jeanovich Jacobson—Balzer’s 24-year-old nephew from Belgium who has been living with him and appears to be connected to the silver thefts

Nestor Ivanovich—a former fingerprint expert at the police station, who assists Samson with his case

Princess/Dr. Vera Ignatyevna Gedroits—a maxillofacial surgeon who leads Samson to Dr. Trattner; she advises Samson against getting a prosthetic ear

Dr. Trattner—a surgeon with the Iona Zaitsev’s Jewish Surgical Hospital who remembers a former patient, leading to the solution to Samson’s case

January 2026 Author’s Video for Louise Penny

 

A World of Curiosities

January 2026

Louise Penny

A World of Curiosities

Character List for A World of Curiosities

Sûreté du Québec

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache—the almost 60-year-old head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec; he’s also a resident of Three Pines

Jean-Guy Beauvoir—Gamache’s second in command; at the time of the Clotilde Arsenault homicide (over a decade earlier), Gamache had plucked him out of a local sûreté detachment where he was languishing in the evidence locker; now, Gamache is his father-in-law as well as his boss

Inspector Linda Chernin—lead investigator reporting to Gamache on the Clotilde Arsenault murder case

Captain Hardye Moel—one of Gamache’s agents trained in grief counseling and experienced in working with children; she appears as part of the Clotilde Arsenault murder case; by the time of the hidden-room case, she has been promoted to captain, has received her PhD, and has become head of the counseling division of the Sûreté du Québec and Gamache’s therapist

Agent Amelia Choquet—one of Gamache’s agents; he had rejected and then approved her application to the Sûreté Academy at the beginning of her career with the Surete; in the hidden-room case, Gamache calls on her to protect his wife

Isabelle Lacoste—Sûreté agent who shares second-in-command duties with Jean-Guy Beauvoir; during most of the hidden-room case, she is vacationing in Manitou

Gamache Family

Reine-Marie Gamache—Armand Gamache’s wife; she’s retired as the chief archivist at the Bibliothèque et Archives Natíonale du Québec

Annie (Gamache) Beauvoir—Gamache’s daughter, married to Jean-Guy Beauvoir

Honoré Beauvoir—Annie and Jean-Guy’s 5-year-old son

Idola Beauvoir—Annie and Jean-Guy’s baby daughter

Daniel Gamache—Gamache’s son, married to Roslyn with daughters Florence and Zora (Zora is named after Gamache’s mother)

Henri, Fred, and Gracie—the Gamaches’ dogs

Residents of Three Pines

Myrna Landers—a retired psychologist and the owner of a new and used bookshop with a loft; she and Billy Williams live in the building, and Harriet often stays there, too; the hidden room is adjacent to the loft

Harriet Landers—Myrna’s niece, a civil engineering student in her early 20s who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks; at the École Polyechnique graduation, she receives the graduate scholarship given annually in honor of the victims of the “Montréal Massacre”

Billy Williams—Myrna’s partner; his ancestor Pierre Stone appears to have been the stonemason who bricked off the hidden room around 1862

Ruth Zardo—an elderly poet with historical knowledge of the Three Pines area; she has a pet duck named Rosa

Clara Morrow—a local (but well-known) painter

Olivier—owner of local B&B

Gabri—Olivier’s partner and chef at the local bistro

Reverend Robert Mongeau—the elderly minister (around 70 years old) at St. Thomas’s (the village church); he’s only recently graduated from divinity school and been assigned to St. Thomas’s

Sylvie Mongeau—the reverend’s wife, dying from cancer

Claude Boisfranc—the recently hired caretaker for St. Thomas’s, who lives in the church basement

Characters from the Clotilde Arsenault Case

Clotilde Arsenault—36-year-old murder victim found by edge of a lake after having been reported missing two days earlier by her children, Fiona and Sam Arsenault

Fiona Arsenault—the then 13-year-old daughter of Clotilde Arsenault; she was charged and pled guilty to Clotilde’s murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison; now an adult, she is on parole on the weekends during which she lives with the Gamaches; while in prison, she has completed her mechanical engineering degree from the École Polyechnique remotely and, through Gamache’s intercession, has been allowed to attend the graduation ceremony

Sam Arsenault—the then 10-year-old son of Clotilde Aresenault; he’s had a troubled childhood and adolescence spent in foster care and delinquency; he reappears for Fiona’s graduation and moves into the B&B in Three Pines

Captain Alexandre Dagenais—rogue head of the local sûreté detachment where Clotilde was murdered; he’s revealed to be running a crooked cop shop

Dr. Mignon—a doctor from the nearest large town, who serves as the coroner for the Clotilde murder

Other Characters from the Hidden-Room Case

Nathalie Provost—an engineering student who survived the “Montréal Massacre” (December 6, 1989) at the École Polyechnique in which 14 female engineering students were killed and 13 wounded, including Provost; she has gone on to become a spokesperson for the victims and their families

Anne Lemarque—a 17th Century Montréal woman accused by the church of being a witch who owned a grimoire (a book of spells) and subsequently banished from Montréal; Ruth believes Lemarque and other banished women founded Three Pines

Monsieur Godin—a 70-ish man who had purchased Billy Williams’s ancestral home (built by Pierre Stone) years earlier

Patricia Godin—Godin’s recently deceased wife whose death was ruled suicide by the local sûreté detachment but reclassified as murder after the Sûreté du Québec reviews the autopsy report; Billy thought she had forwarded an old letter written by Pierre Stone to him, but Monsieur Godin declares the forwarding address and accompanying note are not her hand-writing

Dr. Mirlande Louissaint—curator with the Museé des beaux arts in Montréal who identifies the painting found in the hidden room as a modified copy of the 1670 painting “The Paston Treasure” (aka “A World of Curiosities”)

Thérèse Brunel—a retired senior officer of the Sûreté du Québec, now living in Vancouver; she had been the senior curator at the Museé before joining the Sûreté

Jérôme Brunel—Thérèse’s husband and retired emergency room doctor whose hobby and passion is breaking codes

Lillian Virginia Mountweazel—a mysterious woman who appears in several contexts; Reine-Marie Gamache points out that this name is an obvious pseudonym since it was a code often used by print publishers to catch copyright infringements

John Fleming—a 71-year-old psychopath and serial killer, sentenced to life in prison

Cecil Clarke—a 70ish-year-old docent at the Norwich Castle Museum in Norfolk, UK, where the real painting “The Paston Treasure” is exhibited