1st to Die

Claire is a highly intelligent woman who practically runs the medical examiner’s office, is married to a musician, and has several children. Claire is organized and observant, making her the ideal person to do forensic work on homicide cases. Claire and Lindsay are effective colleagues: Claire often offers Lindsay crucial evidence, making their partnership a boon to both their careers.

Claire and Lindsay are also very close friends: Claire is the first person Lindsay turns to when she learns of her diagnosis, trusting her to be empathetic and also discreet. Later, when Lindsay is despondent over Chris’s death, Claire will be one of the friends who talks Lindsay down from the brink of suicide.

As the novel progresses, Claire becomes the backbone of the Women’s Murder Club, helping Lindsay work through evidence and find the killer. Claire remains open-minded to all possibilities even when she doubts Lindsay’s conclusions. At first, Claire insists that the evidence shows Nicholas is the murderer and that he worked alone. However, Claire shows her deep belief in her friend by reviewing the evidence again and discovering evidence that the killer is a woman.

Cindy, an unproven reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, is assigned to the Brandt murder only because she is the only one available in the newsroom when information about the murders comes in. Knowing that this is her opportunity to leave the lifestyle beat and become a crime reporter, Cindy uses her canny street smarts to talk her way onto the crime scene and get a few moments alone with lead detective Lindsay. Cindy’s professional ambition and her daring behavior—tailing after Lindsay to get the full scoop—win Lindsay’s respect and net Cindy an invitation to dinner with Lindsay and Claire. The women’s instant bond undergirds the Women’s Murder Club.

Cindy proves to be an excellent investigator. Researching the third bride victim, Kathy Voskuhl, Cindy figures out the identity of Kathy’s abusive ex-boyfriend; later, she uses her knowledge of the literary world to find a copy of Nicholas’s first novel without alerting him of this search. Cindy also proves herself to be a good friend when she shows up for Lindsay, offering support when she learns about Lindsay’s illness and after Chris dies.

When the novel introduces Jill late in the plot, her insistence that Lindsay and Chris find stronger evidence against Nicholas before they arrest him appears to mark her as an adversary. However, when Lindsay asks Jill to join the Women’s Murder Club, Jill quickly agrees.

Jill’s role is small, but important—she is the calm voice of logic who grounds the other women, pushing back when Lindsay questions whether Nicholas really was set up, pointing out how solid the evidence against him is and refusing to entertain new suspects until there is new evidence. Without Jill’s hard line, Claire might not have checked the urine—evidence that proves the killer was female. In the end, Jill does not have a professional role in the investigation since the killers die before trial. However, she plays an important role as one of the friends who helps Lindsay find her way out of the darkness.

Chris, a divorced father of two, works as a Community Action liaison between the police and the community for the mayor’s office. When Lindsay first meets him, she sees him as a public relations guy who has no understanding of what it’s like to be a beat detective, so when he is placed in charge of her case, she is annoyed and frustrated. However, she soon sees that he is more than she gave him credit for: Chris does have experience on the streets, and he is a good partner for Lindsay. He commits to doing the leg work, discovering information such as the missing couple in Napa, the gun Nicholas Jenks owns, and the assault report Nicholas Jenks’s ex-wife filed. Chris is also more than willing to acknowledge that Lindsay outshines him in this investigation.

Chris is also Lindsay’s love interest. The two are immediately attracted to each other, though she is afraid to start a relationship because of her illness. After they finally do spend several blissful days together, Chris is shot to death by Chessy Jenks. His death devastates Lindsay and briefly leaves her suicidal. However, this tragedy also reveals Lindsay’s strength and the importance of her friendships as she manages to find her way out of the darkness.

The killer assumes the identity Phillip Campbell and murders the Brandts and the DeGeorges. The person wearing the Phillip Campbell mask is cruel and coldhearted; by targeting newlyweds and stealing their wedding rings, this murderer imagines committing the “purest act of purification” (261).

The murderer takes this alias because Phillip Campbell is also the main character in Nicholas Jenks’s first novel, Always a Bridesmaid. In that book, Phillip Campbell is framed for killing several newlywed couples—a plot detail that leads police to arrest Nicholas Jenks. When Phillip Campbell turns out to be a woman, Nicholas is seemingly cleared of the crimes. In reality, the murderer is a composite person: Chessy Jenks puts on the Phillip Campbell disguise to kill at her husband’s behest, and, paradoxically, as revenge against Nicholas’s abuse.

Nicholas Jenks is a bestselling thriller novelist. His father was a sexual sadist; as a child, Nicholas witnessed his father abusing his mother and grew up into an abuser himself. As his conceit and sadism grow, Nicholas blurs the line between fantasy and reality, enacting his fantasies in his novels and in real life.

As a wealthy and successful celebrity, Nicholas believes he is above the law. He is partially right: When Lindsay suspects that he might be behind the murders, assistant DA Jill refuses to authorize the arrest warrant until Lindsay has more evidence because of Nicholas’s stature. Nicholas is also powerful enough to threaten witnesses into silence: Kathy Voskuhl’s family is so terrified of him they refuse to identify him to the police.

Fearless and self-assured, Nicholas lies brazenly to the police; later, when he is being transported to his arraignment, he capitalizes on the opportunity to escape during an earthquake. Nicholas’s downfall is his ego. After Chessy confesses to the murders and dies, Nicholas has gotten off scot free; however, he is obsessed with getting revenge on Lindsay, admitting to masterminding the killings to put down Lindsay’s investigator skills—a decision that leads to his demise.

Chessy, the second wife of Nicholas Jenks, is a beautiful young woman Nicholas had an affair with while married to his first wife. Chessy seemingly adores her husband, though readers see the horrific abuse at the core of their relationship. The novel’s twist reveals that Chessy is not as ok with this violence as she lets on. She is the one who has been dressing up as Phillip Campbell and murdering couples, planting evidence implicating Nicholas at the scene of her crimes. After Chessy’s death, Nicholas claims that she was his puppet. However, instead of committing another set of murders while Nicholas was in jail to exonerate him, Chessy decides to let Nicholas to suffer in prison as revenge for his abuse. Her attempt to take back control of her life is short-lived: When Nicholas escapes jail, she reunites with him only to die at Lindsay’s hands.

Nicholas Jenks’s first wife Joanna was also abused by Nicholas. Often, she would call the police, but refused to ever press charges because she loved Nicholas. After Nicholas left Joanna for Chessy, Joanna sued Nicholas several times to claim financial damages: She had supported the family while he wrote his first novel, but he divorced her just as his first novel became a bestseller. Joanna anger about this money, her odd friendship with Chessy, and her telling the police about the similarities between Nicholas’s book Always a Bridesmaid and the Honeymoon Murders makes Lindsay suspect Joanna of being the killer: Joanna has the means, the motive, and the physical strength. However, Joanna is innocent; when she is found murdered in her town house, the implication is that Chessy killed her as part of her plan to set up Nicholas.