The Yacht Party - Characters

 SPOILERS!!

These are the characters for futher reference:

Regular characters (or relevant in the series continuity):

• Lara Stone is the main character. She is a journalist and has been working for the "Chronicle", the newspaper owned by her uncle for a few years. Lara has been in the investigation department, but when one of her stories results in a libel lawsuit which the newspaper loses, her uncle tells her that he is going to remove the department and she should take a breather in the meantime. Lara's parents died when she was young, so she grew up with her uncle, aunt and cousin, and she was left enough money to live for the rest of her life. At the end of the novel Lara gets a note, telling her that her father is alive. Lara's best friend is Alex, and everybody seems to think that they should be together, but Lara always says that they are just friends. When they first met at university, Lara was in love with him, and she hoped he would feel the same, but nothing ever happened, and Lara tells herself that she is not in love with him. 
• Alex Ford is the deputy editor in the Chronicle. He is also Lara's best friend. Everybody thinks that they should be together romantically, but nothing has ever happened. Lara claims that he never showed any interest in her when they met and she was in love with him. And from his thoughts we know that Alex was once interested but Lara went with someone else. Alex has been dating Alicia, a ambitious woman, for a while, but Lara finds out that Alicia has been cheating on him with Charlie, Lara's cousin. So they break up. 
• Stella Harris is Lara's assistant. When the investigation department is disbanded, Stella starts working at a café owned by a family friend. So when Lara goes to find her to investigate Sandrine's death, Stella has no doubts to follow her. Stella is determined, funny and loyal. She grew up in Scotland, and her background is not privileged like Lara's. 
• DCI Ian Fox is the dtective who Lara has known through her job for years. 
• Eduardo Ortega is the founder and editor in chief of le Cache, which is a investigation corporation. Eduardo and Sandrine had a relationship. 
• Darius Allen is the editor in chief of the Chronicle. Alex dreams of becoming the editor in chief one day, but from what Charlie tells him, Darius and Nicholas have shared history and he is not going to get a promotion any time soon. 
• Nicholas Avery is the chairman in the Chronicle and Lara's uncle. When he loses the libel lawsuit, he decides to scrap the investigation department, and as a consequence, Lara loses her job. 
• Olivia Avery is Lara's aunt
• Charlie Avery is Lara's cousin. He has a reputation of being a womaniser. He and Alicia have an affair behind Alex's back, and when Alex discovers the affair, Charlie admits that the thing with Alicia started as something physical, but he has discover that he really likes her. 
• Alicia Croft is Alex's girlfriend, but they break up when Alex discovers that she has cheated on him. 
• Terry Ford is Alex's father. He used to have a newsagent's and that is the reason why Alex grew up loving journalism. 
• David Avery is Lara's father. Until now Lara has thought he was dead, but at the end of the book she gets a note telling her that her father is alive. 
• Ramona Avery is Lara's late mother.
• Celine is Alex's PA. 
• Jimmy Reeves runs the café where Stella works after losing her job at the Chronicle. Jimmy is a family friend, but Stella calls him Uncle Jimmy. 
• Glenda Reeves is Jimmy's daughter, and she is the café manager.
• Oliver Wolf is the Chronicle'd managing director. 
• Frank Benson works at the news desk of the Chronicle
• Dominic Parker is a former colleague of Alex's. He is in advertising, and it is through him that Alex gets a job offer in a digital newspaper.
• Louis Brand works in the news section of the Chronicle
• Harris works in the business section of the Chronicle. 
• Gary McTavish is the chief picture editor of the Chronicle.

Characters in this novel:

• Sandrine Legard was Lara's best friend alongside Alex. The three of them met at university. Sandrine worked for Le Figaro in Paris, and in London she is killed. Everybody thinks that she committed suicide, but Lara refuses to believe that, so she starts investigating. Lara discovers that she was killed by Mike Sachs because Sandrine had found out that the charity he funded was used to trafick people in Tahiti.
• Stefan Melberg is teh co-founder of the Cache alongside Eduardo. When Lara starts investigating Sandrine's death, Eduardo and Stefan help her. At some poing Stefan and Lara  have a fling, and in the end Alex discovers that Stefan has lied to Lara. He had an affair with Sandrine, and he passed the information to Mike Sachs because the latter had financed his projects. When he is found out, Stefan gives Lara a copy of all the information that he got from Sandrine and passed to Mike. 
• Mike Sachs is the financier who is the killer of Sandrine, Jonathon and Helen. Sandrine found out through Helen that the charity which Mike funded got involved in human trafficking. That is why he decided to have them killed. He almost killed Lara at the end of the book, and it is only because his wife intervened that Lara didn't lose her life. 
• Helen Groves is the young woman who went to Tahiti as a volunteer for the charity Mike and Victoria Sachs were founders. Helen discovered that local people disappeared, which made her suspect human trafficking. When she told Victoria about seeing one of the charity workers taking a local woman, some days later she was killed in a hit and run. 
• Rebecca Robertson was Helen's friend, and she got scared when Helen was killed and fled to the north of Scotland, and it is there where Lara talked to and discovered why Helen had been killed. 
• Victoria Sachs is Mike's wife. She alerts DCI Ian Fox to save Lara. At the end of the book Victoria tells Lara that now she is free, she can be happy for real. 
• JOnathon Meyer is a financier whose death Sandrine was investigating. Sachs was a mentor to him, and it was Jonathon who put him into contact with Schmitt a hired killer. Sachs had him killed when Jonathon tried to blackmail him. 
• Josie Boufrie was Jonathon's girlfriend. The woman talked to Lara to say that she overheard someone telling Jonathon that he needed to help him get rid of a woman. 
• Simon Meyer was Jonathon's brother, and Lara contacts him when she starts investigating. He is a lawyer.
• Tom Ramsay runs the yacht which Jonathon owned. 
• Melissa gelman runs a companion service and privided girls for the parties Jonathon threw on his yacht.
• Felix Tait is a tech tycoon who sues the Corrier for libel. Lara wrote an article about him frequenting prostitutes, but he brought evidence that the article was a lie, and the newspaper lost the lawsuit. Tait's lawsuit was based on his personal chef, who is in love with him, but it seems she is going to change her testimony as Felix has clearly deceived her. 
• Christie Spencer is Felix Tait's personal chef and whose testimony helped him win the lawsuit. 
• Schmitt is the man who Mike Sachs used to kill those who meant a threat for him. Jonathon was the one who introduced Schmitt to Sachs.
• Gerald Rawles is the barrister who acts on behalf of the Chronicle at the Felix Tait lawsuit. 
• Judge Winters is the judge in the Felix Tait lawsuit.
• Dingo was Lara's cat which was killed when her boathouse was ransacked. 
• DS Rob Monaghan is the policeman who calls Lara about Sandrine's death.
• Jean and Marion Legard are Sandrine's parents.
• Ian and Callie Groves are Helen's parents. 
• David Becker offers Alex a job in his digital newspaper. It is thanks to Becker that Alex discovers that Stefan and Mike Sachs knew each other as Sachs has funded his projects. 

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