The Bullet That Missed - Characters

 These are the characters in the book for further reference

SPOILERS

REGULAR CHARACTERS

• Joyce Meadowcroft (77) is one of the members of the Thursday Murder Club. She joined after Penny, the creator of the club, was sent to the nursing home after her health declined. Joyce used to be a nurse and is widowed. She has a daughter, Joanna. Joyce is very sweet and has a very special way of seeing the world. Now Joyce has a dog, Alan, which she adores, and she seems to feel attracted to a new village owner, Mervyn, who also has a dog. 
• Elizabeth Best (76) is another member of the Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth used to be of the secret service. Elizabeth is married to Stephen,who is showing signs of dementia. Elizabeth is very determined and sure of herself. Elizabeth was married before; her first husband was also a spy, Douglas, and in the previous book he was killed.
• Ibrahim Arif (80) is another member of the Thursday Murder Club. He is a psychiatrist. He has got over the fear he felt in the last book when he was attacked by a gang of youths. In this book he goes to see Connie Johnson because she may talk to Heather, the fraudster who is also in prison for the crime Bethany Waites was investigating. Connie likes him, and Ibrahim agrees to go and see her regularly for therapy. 
• Ron Ritchie (75) is the fourth member of the Thursday Murder Club. Ron used to be a union activist, and now he is as belligerent as he used to be. He has a grown-up son and daughter, and a grandson, Kendrick. Ron and Ibrahim are very close friends. In this book Ron starts a relationship with Pauline, a make-up artist.
• PC Donna De Freitas (26) is the policewoman who the Thursday Murder Club become friendly with. Donna used to work in London, but left when her boyfriend dumped her even though she admits she wasn’t in love. Donna and Bogdan are now in a relationship.
• DCI Chris Hudson (51) is a detective who became friends with the the elderly people of the Thursday Murder Club.  Now Chris is dating Donna's mother, Patrice. In this book Chris and Donna receive an award because of their good job in discovering the criminals in the previous book.
• Bogdan Jankowski is a Polsih immigrant. He is the person who those in the Thursday Murder Club turn to when they need something, illegal or not. Bogdan and Stephen are friends  and they play chess together. Bogdan and Donna meet in this book, and at the end of the novel it seems that tthey are going to start a relationship.
• Connie Johnson is a drug dealer who was arrested in the last book. She now knows that she is prison because Ron and Bogdan tricked her. So she swears to kill them when she is relased. Ibrahim goes to see her because he wants her help to discover what Heather knows. Connie likes Ibrahim and even persuades him to come to see her every week for therapy. Connie has a very comfortable life in prison, and she has all the comforts her money and influence buy her. 
• Alan is Joyce's dog.
• Stephen is Elizabeth’s husband, and he is showing signs of dementia. Elizabeth is his second wife. Stephen likes playing chess with Bogdan, but it seems that the effects of his dementia is more evident now. 
• Patrice is Donna’s mother. He and Chris are dating. 
• Kendrick (8) is Ron's grandson. He is a lovely boy, intelligent and is good friends with Ibrahim. From what the boy tells Ibrahim, it seems that there is some problem with his father. 
• Joanna Meadowcroft (52) is Joyce’s daughter. She runs a hedge fund. Joyce and Joanna often don't see eye to eye. 
• Scott is Joanna's boyfriend.
• Gerry was Joyce’s late husband.
• Mervyn is the new neighbour in the village and Joyce likes him. He speaks very little and has a dog, Rosie. 
• Jason Ritchie is Ron’s son. He is a boxer, and now that he is older, he appears in all kinds of reality shows. 
• Karen Playfair is the woman Jason is dating. She is the daughter of another pensioner living in Coopers Chase. She is an expert on computers.
• DI Terry Hallet is in Chris’s team. He is happily married and has four children.
• Anthony is the hairdresser who goes to Coopers Chase weekly to do the residents’ hair.
• Carlito is the driver of the minibus in Coopers Chase.
• Mark is the taxi driver that Ron uses when he picks up his grandson, Kendrick.
• Suzi is Ron's daughter and Kendrick's mum.
• Danny is Ron's son-in-law
• Gordon Playfair owns a farm on the top of the hill, and he refused to sell his property to the developer, Ian, in the first book because he didn’t like him. After Ian’s death, Joanna made him an offer and he accepted, and now he is living in Coopers Chase.
• Bernard Cottle lived in Coopers Chase. His wife died some months ago and he felt her loss terribly. Joyce had a shining for him. He became a suspect in the first book when the murders happened. Bernard committed suicide and left a note to Joyce explaining that he did something wrong. He gave his daughter an urn with sand instead of his wife’s ashes, and he buried them under the bench in the cemetery. Then when the area was going to be developed, cement was spread there, and the ashes were inaccessible.
• Penny Gray and Elizabeth created the Thursday Murder Club aimed at discussing Penny’s old unresolved cases. Penny used to be a detective, but when her health declined, she was transferred to the nursing home. Elizabeth discovered that the person who killed Ian was Penny’s husband to protect her. The thing is that Penny killed the boyfriend of a murdered girl when there was no way to send him to prison. Then she put his body in one of the graves in the nuns’ cemetery. John discovered the truth when Penny got dementia and started to talk about the past, so when he learnt that they were going to dig up the cemetery, he knew he had to do something and killed Ian.
• John Gray was Penny’s husband. He killed Ian to protect his wife. When ELizabeth revealed what she knew, John helped Penny to die and he also killed himself.
• Ian Venthan (50) was the owner of the retirement village and wanted to develop the adjacent area including the former convent and the nuns’ cemetery. Ian was murdered during a protest from the residents against the desecration of the nuns’ cemetery in the first book.
• Emily was Stephen’s first wife.
• Carl is Donna’s ex-boyfriend.
  

CHARACTERS IN THIS NOVEL:

• Bethany Waites is a journalis who is believed to have died ten years ago. Her car went off a cliff, but her body was never found. The Thursday Murder Club investigate her death, which is connected to a fraud case Bethany was investigating. At the end of the book we learn that Bethany faked her death and is in Dubai. She had to run away because she was afraid for Mike's life.
• Chief Constable Andrew Everton was the brain in the fraud scheme, but he was never found out. Elizabeth and the others discover that he was involved thanks to Joyce. Andrew writes detective stories, and one of the names in the fake accounts was the name of a character. Elizabeth and the others set him to fall, and he confesses everything to Henrik, a confession which is being filmed and shown on instagram. Andrew is sent to prison for killing Bethany as well because he confessed to her death as well, but he didn't kill her. He did kill Jack Mason.
• Viktor Illyich is a KGB agent who Elizabeth kneew twenty years ago. Elizabeth is ordered to kill him by a man who kidnaps her and she nicknames the Viking. Elifzabeth fakes the murder and taks Viktor to the village. Viktor feels so great with Joyce and the others that he realises that he needs people like them in his life. Maybe he will move to live there.  
• Henrik Mikael Hensen / The Viking is the man who kidnaps Elizabeth and Stephen because he wants her to kill Viktor. Henrik threatens to kill Joyce. When he discovers that Elizabeth has lied and hasn't killed Viktor, he goes after Joyce. Yet, Joyce is too clever for him. Finally, Henrik becomes friends of Viktor and the others.
• Mike Waghorn (77) was Bethany's colleage and friend. Grief hit her hard when Bethany disappeared. In this book the Thursday Murder Club manage to get in touch with him and he agrees to help them to investigate Bethany's case.
• Pauline Jenkins is the make-up artist in Mike's programme. She used to know Bethany as well. Pauline falls for Ron, and they start a relationship. At some point it seems that she may be involved in Bethany's murder. What we discover is that Pauline helped Bethany disappear when she made up her face and gave her a wig so that she could look different and could escape.
• Heather Garbutt was the woman who Bethany was investigating as she was involved in a fraud. Heather is in prison, but when Connie starts asking questions about Bethany, she becomes scared and commits suicide
• Jack Mason was Heather's boss. Ron knonws him and goes to talk to him. The two of them play snooker, and Jack admits to knowing that Bethany is dead. Actually, he tells Ron that Bethany didn't die in the cliff, but he knows she was killed and buried somewhere else. Shortly after Heather's property is dig up and a gun and money are found, Jack is found dead. THe police think it is suicide, but Jack was killed by Andrew Everton. 
• Fiona Clemence is the journalist who replaced Bethany when she disappeared.
• Carwyn Price is the producer in Mike's programme. He is fired when he is found out to be the one sending threating notes to those working in the programme
• Kuldesh Sharwa is Stephen's friend and owns a shop in Brighton. Kuldesh helps Stephen to identify the man who kidnapped him and Elizabeth. 
• Amber is Mike's cohost at present.
• Cornelius is Joanna's American colleague. His wife has recently left him.