Triptych

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006

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Part 6

Character Analysis

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Character Analysis

Will Trent

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, child death, rape, child sexual abuse, addiction, and physical abuse.

Will is a special agent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and a member of the Special Criminal Apprehension Team. He is a highly competent, driven agent, and although he is kindhearted, he is also extremely clever and observant. His competence as an investigator has allowed him to achieve a high clearance rate of 89%, which is nearly unheard of in his field. His successful track record has drawn some envy from his peers, and his reputation for excellence sometimes makes him a target for subversive forms of malice from his peers.

Will grew up in the foster care system and suffered a wide range of unspecified abuses as a child, and his body is marred by the scars of many childhood injuries, including a scar on his face. Because Will has known Angie since their time together in foster care, the two now see each other as a source of emotional support. They are trauma bonded and have occasional romantic interludes, in between Angie’s many self-destructive and short-lived relationships with ill-chosen men. Most of the time, she and Will behave more like siblings.

Will also has dyslexia, and he finds this condition to be deeply embarrassing whenever it causes him to struggle with reading and comprehending written material in a public setting. He is deeply shy about his dyslexia and refuses to ask for help or accommodations at his job. Throughout the novel, he struggles with reading street signs, and this aspect of his disability often causes him to get lost. Will frequently worries that the daily effects of his dyslexia will harm his career, and he tries to overcome this challenge by creating many useful accommodations for himself, such as recording emails so that he doesn’t have to read them. He is confident that he has been hiding these accommodations from his colleagues, but his boss, Amanda Wagner, has known about his struggles for a long time.

Angie Polaski/“Robin”

Angie is a quick-thinking police officer who works undercover in Vice. Angie understands what is required to navigate a male-dominated field, and she is well-versed in guiding herself through the bureaucratic circles of law enforcement. Due to her experiences of childhood abuse and her time in the foster care system, she is very self-righteous and has self-destructive tendencies as an adult. She uses her physical attractiveness to her advantage, and her appearance also gives her an edge in her police work, as she successfully lures men who are soliciting sex workers. She is both impulsive and analytical and has a soft spot for those who have been abandoned in one way or another.

Angie experienced a deeply traumatizing childhood. Her mother, who was addicted to drugs, allowed various men to rape Angie. After her mother’s overdose, Angie was put in a state-run home that was essentially an orphanage. There, she met Will, and the two bonded over their shared backgrounds of abuse. They also experimented sexually together, beginning a lifelong on-again-off-again romantic relationship that is sustained by their deep and complex friendship. Because Angie and Will are trauma bonded, they alternate between behaving like lovers and like siblings. Will is Angie’s safe harbor, and she loves him in a way that she will never love anyone else.

Will is frustrated by Angie’s self-destructive love life, as she often becomes involved with abusive men and ignores all of Will’s advice and criticism. When each relationship inevitably fails, she returns to Will and resumes a toxic cycle. In her personal life, Angie often flaunts her looks, taking some satisfaction in the fact that she can compel men to respond to her. This behavior pattern is her method of trying to maintain control of her life after experiencing years of sexual abuse. Sometimes, this approach allows her to feel in control of her body, but at other times, the resulting interactions with men trigger her, as when the receptionist at the nursing home assumes that she is a sex worker and tries to proposition her.

As part of Angie’s self-destructive patterns, she previously slept with Michael despite his status as a married colleague. After this poor decision, she learned that he was abusing his power to coerce sex from the local sex workers. Outraged by his deeply unethical behavior, she demanded that he transfer out of Vice and threatened to report him if he failed to comply. Enraged by what he saw as a betrayal, Michael refused to forgive Angie for forcing this issue; in his killer’s mind, he decided that her actions marked her for death.

John Shelley

As a young boy, John was an active child in a wealthy family and grew up in an affluent section of Atlanta. He got along well with his older sister, Joyce, and was adored by his mother, Emily. However, his father, Richard, really only tolerated John, and only when John did exactly what Richard wanted him to do. John’s cousin Woody Carson got him involved with drugs, at which point John abandoned his successful path and became addicted to drugs. His honest behavior also gave way to lying, laziness, and disrespect. This descent caused Richard to write him off entirely, and he officially disowned the teenage John when the boy overdosed on cocaine. John also lost many friends due to his drug addiction, including Mary Alice, whom he had known since childhood. When John was arrested for petty crimes, he became regarded as an unfortunate member of an otherwise successful family.

During his 20 years in prison for murdering Mary Alice, a crime he did not commit, John is a model prisoner who is often raped by older inmates. When the novel first introduces him, he has recently been released from prison and is struggling to acclimate to life as a free man. After discovering that Woody stole his identity, John becomes determined to surveil his cousin and expose his latest crimes. However, his actions lead to the death of Michael/Woody’s 15-year-old neighbor and illicit sexual partner, Cynthia Barrett. When John is arrested in connection with the death of Aleesha Monroe, he finally confesses to Will that he knows Michael to be her killer. John eventually finds some semblance of redemption when he helps Angie and Jasmine escape from Michael in the novel’s climactic scene. Afterward, he locates his aunt Lydia and demands that she help him clear his name, and he also strengthens his bond with Joyce.

Michael Ormewood/Woody Carson

As a child, Michael’s name was Woody Carson, and as a resident of a reasonably well-to-do suburban neighborhood, he had considerable freedom. As a teenager, he became involved in using and dealing cocaine. His mother, Lydia, was a busy lawyer who largely ignored and condoned his extensive misbehavior, and his stepfather, Barry, constantly compared him to his cousin John as a way to shame him into improving himself. As a result, Woody grew to deeply hate John, and this hidden loathing eventually led to his choice to murder Mary Alice, John’s teenage love interest. He then blamed John for the crime, and his mother helped him avoid justice by taking action to incriminate John as the murderer.

As an adult, Woody adopted the name Michael Ormewood. When the novel begins, he has a strained relationship with his mother and only contacts her to ask for money. He is married to Gina, whom he met when he was 26 and she was only 15—the same age that Mary Alice was when he killed her. Shortly after meeting Gina, he served in the Gulf War, and the narrative implies that he shot himself in the leg to avoid combat and get discharged. Michael and Gina then married and had a son named Tim, who has an intellectual disability. Michael resents the fact that his mother-in-law blames him for Tim’s disability, and he also resents the need for Gina to work so many hours to afford therapy for Tim. He uses his self-pity to rationalize his decision to have an affair with Cynthia, his neighbor, who is 15 years old. When these facts come to light, the narrative reveals that Michael has been a pedophile since he was a teenager, and as a preferential offender, he targets girls who are 15 years old.

Michael is also revealed to be a sexual sadist, as he takes pleasure in raping girls and women and does not view them as people. Starting with Mary Alice, he bites off the tongues of some of the women whom he has targeted and killed. This gruesome signature further dehumanizes them, as those who survive his violence literally lose their ability to speak. As a sexual predator, Michael carefully watches the behavior of his colleagues to blend in, and he actively manipulates the women around him. He also abuses his position as a member of law enforcement by coercing women into having sex and refusing to pay sex workers for their services. Michael’s narcissistic tendencies compel him to hate anyone who has criticized him. For example, he is still angered by the thought of being laughed at when he was stuck in an elevator. (Aleesha Monroe, the woman whom he has recently murdered and whose murder he and Will are charged with solving, was one of the people who laughed at him.) Ultimately, Michael/Woody proves himself to be a deeply violent serial killer who has no capacity for remorse.