Moon over Soho characters

Appears from the start

Now the Folly's sworn apprentice, a Metropolitan Police constable learning magic the slow way: Latin, formae, and hours of practice under supervision. With his master convalescing from a near-fatal gunshot wound, much of the legwork on the Folly's cases falls to Peter, along with the growing realization that London's magical world is larger and less tidy than the official version admits. The son of a jazz musician, he grew up around the music that sits at the heart of this case.

Appears from the start

The Folly's master and the last officially sanctioned wizard in England, recovering from being shot in the chest during the Covent Garden affair. Still short of full strength, he supervises Peter's training and casework from a measured convalescence, insisting on the fundamentals even when his apprentice would rather improvise. His long memory of London's magical history keeps proving indispensable.

Appears from the start

Peter's friend and former fellow probationer, convalescing at her family home in Essex after the possession that destroyed her face. Once rated the most promising young officer of their intake, she is now facing reconstructive surgery and an uncertain future, but her police instincts are undimmed and Peter still turns to her to think cases through by phone.

Appears from the start

The Folly's silent, sharp-toothed housekeeper, not remotely human, who keeps the great empty building fed and ordered. With Nightingale recuperating she watches over master and apprentice alike with a fierce, wordless attentiveness.

Also known as Lord Grant

Appears from the start

Peter's father, once a rising jazz trumpeter good enough to be spoken of with the greats, whose career was wrecked decades ago by heroin. Living quietly with Peter's mother, he remains a walking encyclopedia of the London jazz scene, and the case draws Peter back into his father's world - and toward the possibility of the old man playing again.

First appears in chapter 2

The lover of the dead saxophonist whose case opens the book: warm, pleasure-loving, and slightly out of step with the present, with an old-fashioned manner and an appetite for food, music, and company. She and Peter are drawn to each other almost immediately, and their affair deepens even as the investigation into the deaths of London's jazzmen circles closer to her corner of Soho. She lives with her two devoted sisters.

First appears in chapter 3

A formidable detective sergeant on the murder team handling the conventional side of the case. Blunt, competent, and famously unwise to cross, she has worked with the Folly before and treats its weirdness as one more operational problem to be managed, extending Peter a wary professional respect.

Also known as The Faceless Man

First appears in chapter 10

A trained, capable, and officially nonexistent wizard operating in London's shadows, encountered when the investigation touches his interests: his features are hidden behind a blurring glamour, and his magic is fast, precise, and casually lethal. He is the first evidence that someone has been practising - and teaching - outside the Folly's authority, and Peter's name for him sticks.