Inherent Vice characters

Also known as Doc

Appears from the start

A private investigator and committed marijuana smoker living in the beach community of Gordita Beach in 1970. His loose manner and fading counterculture surroundings conceal persistence, professional instincts, and a network reaching from surfers and musicians to police and prosecutors.

Appears from the start

Doc's former girlfriend, who unexpectedly returns to ask for his help. She is now involved with wealthy developer Mickey Wolfmann and fears that a plan by Mickey's wife and her lover will remove him from the way.

Appears from the start

A powerful Los Angeles real-estate developer whose projects have transformed large stretches of the coast. Shasta says he has recently begun questioning his wealth and that people close to him intend to have him confined.

Appears from the start

Mickey Wolfmann's wife. According to Shasta, Sloane and her lover are discussing a scheme to have Mickey declared mentally unfit and placed in an institution.

Appears from the start

Doc's friend and neighbor, whose mystical outlook makes her attentive to hidden connections and shifts in the atmosphere of Gordita Beach. She works as an informal receptionist and sounding board around his investigations.

Appears from the start

A perpetually relaxed friend in Doc's beach circle. Denis often appears when Doc needs company, transportation, food, or information carried through Gordita Beach's informal network.

Also known as Bigfoot

First appears in chapter 2

An LAPD detective who alternates police work with appearances in commercials and television. He treats Doc as both suspect and useful outsider, sustaining a hostile, competitive familiarity with him across the boundary between official and private investigation.

First appears in chapter 2

An employee at Chick Planet Massage, a business operating on one of Mickey Wolfmann's developments. Her warnings and fragmentary information make her an uneasy contact in Doc's search for the missing developer.

First appears in chapter 3

A Black ex-convict who hires Doc to find Glen Charlock, a white supremacist connected to Mickey Wolfmann. Tariq says an unresolved obligation from their time in prison gives him reason to locate Charlock.

First appears in chapter 4

A former heroin user raising her daughter after the reported death of her musician husband, Coy. Troubled by signs that he may still be alive, she asks Doc to discover what has happened to him.

First appears in chapter 4

A saxophonist whose supposed overdose left Hope Harlingen a widow and their daughter without a father. Evidence that he survived makes him the center of one of Doc's overlapping missing-person cases.

First appears in chapter 5

A deputy district attorney and Doc's intermittent lover. She can move through records and institutions closed to him, though their personal connection is complicated by her place inside the legal system he distrusts.

First appears in chapter 6

A maritime lawyer, occasional musician, and old friend of Doc. His knowledge of ships and waterfront law helps Doc investigate the Golden Fang, a mysterious schooner associated with the cases.

First appears in chapter 8

A dentist with a taste for cocaine who works within the Golden Fang network of dental offices. His mixture of professional respectability and criminal connections reflects the organization Doc is trying to understand.

First appears in chapter 14

A violent associate from Shasta's time around Mickey Wolfmann. His name recurs in accounts linking the Wolfmann disappearance, Glen Charlock's death, and the criminal interests surrounding the Golden Fang.

First appears in chapter 17

A feared loan collector and police informant with a long record of violence. Evidence connecting him to several deaths makes him a dangerous focus of Doc's late investigation.