Three to Get Deadly characters

Appears from the start

A Trenton apprehension agent whose growing experience has not made her work predictable. She is assigned to recover a beloved local merchant, putting her income and professional obligation against the Burg's conviction that the man deserves protection rather than arrest.

Appears from the start

A Trenton vice cop with a long and unresolved personal history with Stephanie. He understands the drug activity behind the new deaths and has police resources Stephanie lacks, but their attraction and mutual competitiveness keep cooperation from becoming simple.

Appears from the start

Vinnie's most accomplished apprehension agent and Stephanie's principal professional mentor. He supplies training, backup, and occasional work beyond her own files, while expecting her to keep functioning under pressure rather than waiting to be rescued.

Appears from the start

A former street worker employed in Vinnie's office who increasingly acts as Stephanie's field partner. Lula brings local knowledge, confidence, and enthusiasm to surveillance and apprehensions, even when her methods are as improvised as Stephanie's.

Also known as Uncle Mo

Appears from the start

The longtime proprietor of an ice-cream and candy store in the Burg, regarded by generations of neighborhood families as kind, respectable, and harmless. He fails to appear in court on a concealed-weapon charge, and the bond makes him Stephanie's target despite the community's hostility to anyone pursuing him.

Appears from the start

Stephanie's cousin and the owner of the bail-bond agency. He requires her to recover Uncle Mo because the bond is at risk, but contributes little when the assignment makes her unpopular across the neighborhood.

Also known as Connie

Appears from the start

The office manager at Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. She provides the file on Uncle Mo, keeps track of Stephanie's other cases, and serves as a dependable source of neighborhood information when the Burg closes ranks.

First appears in chapter 3

Stephanie's former schoolmate and the woman with whom Stephanie's ex-husband was unfaithful. Now trying bounty work herself, Joyce approaches the occupation as a competition and is willing to interfere with Stephanie's cases for money or advantage.

Appears from the start

Stephanie's outspoken grandmother, always interested in arrests, weapons, and neighborhood scandal. She knows Uncle Mo by reputation and reflects the Burg's initial disbelief that the candy-store owner could be connected to serious danger.

Appears from the start

Stephanie's mother, who measures her daughter's increasingly hazardous work against the stable family life she wishes Stephanie would choose. She provides meals, warnings, and a home base while trying to contain Grandma Mazur's enthusiasm.

Appears from the start

Stephanie's father, a retired postal worker who generally responds to the upheaval created by Stephanie and Grandma Mazur with silence and attempts to preserve his routine.

First appears in chapter 2

A Trenton police officer related to Stephanie by marriage. He remains a cautious law-enforcement contact, able to confirm some developments while unwilling to turn police files over to a civilian apprehension agent.