In the Woods characters

Also known as Adam Ryan

Appears from the start

A Dublin Murder Squad detective who narrates the case. As a child he was found injured and terrified in woods near Knocknaree after his two closest friends vanished. He now uses his middle name and an English accent, and almost nobody in the police knows his connection to the old mystery.

Appears from the start

Rob's partner on the Murder Squad and his closest friend. Perceptive, self-possessed, and skilled at interviewing witnesses, she shares an unusually intimate working bond with him and is one of the few people who knows his childhood identity.

Appears from the start

The twelve-year-old victim whose body is found at an archaeological site in Knocknaree. A gifted ballet student preparing for an important audition, she belongs to a local family active in opposition to a planned motorway.

First appears in chapter 2

Katy's father, a forceful local campaigner against the motorway planned through the archaeological site. His activism initially gives detectives a possible public motive for an attack on his family.

First appears in chapter 2

Katy's mother, overwhelmed by her daughter's death and by the tensions already present in the Devlin household. She is less publicly visible than her husband but remains central to the family's account of Katy's last days.

First appears in chapter 2

Katy's older sister, poised and articulate beyond her years. She speaks readily with the detectives and appears protective of the family, while Cassie finds her polished manner difficult to read.

First appears in chapter 2

Katy's surviving twin sister. Quieter and more withdrawn than Rosalind, she has lived in the shadow of Katy's dancing and becomes an important source of information about the household.

Appears from the start

The Murder Squad superintendent who assigns Rob and Cassie to Katy's case. He trusts their partnership but does not know that Rob was the surviving child in the earlier Knocknaree disappearance.

First appears in chapter 3

An archaeologist working on the threatened Knocknaree dig. His familiarity with the site and the people moving through it makes him relevant to the detectives' reconstruction of the crime.

First appears in chapter 8

A young man connected to the archaeological site. He initially appears to be a peripheral figure in the detectives' widening inquiry.

Appears from the start

One of Adam Ryan's two childhood friends who disappeared in the Knocknaree woods in 1984. Her absence, and Rob's inability to remember what happened, continues to shape his adult life.

Appears from the start

One of Adam Ryan's two childhood friends who vanished in the woods. Along with Jamie, he survives in Rob's mind through fragments of a summer that ended in unexplained violence.

First appears in chapter 3

The pathologist whose findings help Rob and Cassie establish how Katy died and how her body reached the archaeological site.