Skeleton Key characters

Appears from the start

Fourteen years old and no longer able to pretend he is an ordinary schoolboy. Twice used by MI6 and twice told it would not happen again, he takes a summer job at Wimbledon believing it is nearly harmless. He is still furious at being handled by adults and still unable to leave a question alone.

First appears in chapter 2

The American housekeeper who has looked after Alex since his uncle's death and who has stopped believing anything MI6 tells either of them. She wants him out of the department's reach and cannot make it happen.

First appears in chapter 4

The head of MI6 Special Operations, who continues to treat Alex as a resource that would be wasteful not to use, and who is quick to hand him on when it suits the department.

First appears in chapter 4

Blunt's deputy, who delivers the department's decisions and occasionally argues with them in private. She is the one who explains to Alex why London has become dangerous for him.

First appears in chapter 5

MI6's gadget-maker, who fits Alex out for a Caribbean assignment with equipment built into holiday clothes and beach kit, and who worries about him more openly than anyone else in the building.

First appears in chapter 6

A CIA field agent, brisk and unimpressed at being handed a teenager by a friendly service. He and his partner are to pose as a holidaying American family with Alex as their son while they watch a Caribbean island from a distance.

First appears in chapter 6

Turner's CIA partner, warmer than he is and better at the family act, though equally clear that Alex is cover and nothing more.

First appears in chapter 8

A Russian general who commanded troops in Afghanistan and later held high office, now living in retirement on the island of Skeleton Key off the Cuban coast. Courteous, austere and precise, he mourns the Soviet Union as a lost civilisation and speaks of the country that replaced it with contempt.

First appears in chapter 9

Sarov's head of security, a man whose body was rebuilt after a catastrophic injury and is held together with metal pins and plates. He does what he is told without hesitation and takes an immediate dislike to Alex.

First appears in chapter 10

The Russian contract killer Alex has met before, now working on Skeleton Key for the man who is paying. Calm and unhurried as always, he treats his encounters with Alex as a professional inconvenience rather than a personal matter.