The Body on Archangel Beach - Characters

 

SPOILERS!!

These are the characters in this book for further reference

Regular characters

• Angela Marchmont/Merivale (35) is determined, clever and resourceful. At first, when we met her, we did not know if she was a widow, but we later discovered that she was separated from her husband. When he reappeared, trying to blackmail her, he was killed, and Angela was accused of his murder. Angela was even sent to prison. It was during the trial that we also learned that Angela had a child out of wedlock, Barbara,  who she pretended to be just her godmother. Angela was engaged to someone who died in a car crash, after which she found she was pregnant. She had Barbara and some friends of hers raised her, and Angela saw the girl regularly. Angela was released from prison  when Edgar confessed to killing David, Angela's husband, after Freddie found and told him how much trouble Angela was in. Edgar was arrested and when he was transferred to another prison, he escaped. The police caught up with him and shot him, and his body fell into the river to be recovered later. Angela believed he was dead for a while, but when she investigated Edgar’s wife’s murder, he reappeared. Angela solved the murder and decided to move to America. On the ship Edgar appeared and they decided to start from scratch in the United States. At the end of that book Edgar asked her to marry him, but Angela refused because of Edgar’s past life. It was Freddy that convinced Edgar to hand himself in. Angela and Edgar got married and he was arrested. In this book Edgar leaves prison, ready to start his life with Angela. 
• Edgar Valencourt/Merivale used to be a jewel thief that Angela met while she was in Cornwall, investigating the robbery of a jewel. Edgar kept appearing throughout the novels when Angela least expected him, and they fell in love. When Angela was tried for the murder of her husband, Edgar confessed to killing David, her husband, even though he did not do it. He also confessed to killing his own wife. Edgar then escaped when he was moved from one prison to another. The police caught up with him, and he was shot and fell into a river. For a while Angela was very sad because she thought he was dead. The body the police recovered was not Edgar in the end, but a stranger who Edgar’s uncle identified wrongly on purpose. So Edgar made his escape. Freddie and Angela also cleared Edgar’s name in connection with his wife’s murder. He didn’t kill her, but his father, who was in love with his daughter-in-law. Edgar and Angela lived happily in America for a while. Then he got involved in a jewel robbery when a band blackmailed him. When Edgar married Angela, he decided to hand himself up, so he has been in prison for six months, and in this book he is release. 
• Freddy Pilkington-Soames is a socialite who tries to make a living as a journalist at the Clarion. Freddy is twenty-four, tends to be lazy and enjoys idle life. However, he is also clever, loyal and generous. Freddy likes women but he knows he is not marriage material. In this book he does not appear. 
• Bettina Dragusha is a a jewel thief who appeared in a previous novel. Bettina tried to kill Edgar in Italy and tried to steal some jewels in a house where Freddy was a guest. Bettina is Valentina’s mother. It seems that there was something between her and Edgar in the past. Bettina does not appear in this novel. 
• Cynthia Pilkington-Soames is Freddy’s mother. She writes a gossip column and she can be overbearing. Cynthia does not appear in this novel. 
• William Tibbs is Angela’s driver. She first met him in America, and Angela helped when he was accused of a theft he didn’t commit. William does not appear in this novel.
• Lady Gertrude (Gertie) McAloon is a young, upper-class girl who has been Freddy’s friend for years. Gertie appeared in a couple of Angela Marchmont books.  Gertie enjoys social life and flirting with men. She and Freddy are now together, but she does not appear in this novel. 
• Valentina Sangiacomo is a thief that Freddy comes across in his adventures. She is Bettina Dragusha’s daughter. She does not appear in this novel
• Herbert Pilkington-Soames is Freddy’s father. He is a banker. He does not appear in this novel.
• Barbara Wells (16) is Angela’s daughter. Barbara was raised by a couple friend of Angela’s, and Barbara has always believed that Angela was just her godmother. Yet, in the last books we learnt that Barbara was Angela’s child, who she had out of wedlock. Her father was Angela’s fiancé at the time, but he was killed in a car crash. To avoid scandal her friends raised Barbara as their own. Barbara is lively, inquisitive and very intelligent, and she spent many years in a boarding school. When the truth was out, Angela went to see her, and Barbara told her that she had already read about the trial, and she knew Angela was her mother. Now Barbara is at school in America.
• Marthe is Angela’s maid. She is French and has a very deep sense of what is fashionable and what is not. Angela treats Marthe as an equal, and Marthe has no misgivings in speaking her mind. She does not appear in this novel. 

Characters in this book

• Penn Piper is a reporter that keeps pestering Edgar and Angela, and that is why decide to go to Rhodes.
• Philip Hallliday is a writer who is in Rhodes to find inspiration. Angela suspects that he is in love with Sophia, but at the end of the book he seems to change his attention to Esther.
• Lady Adela Denoweth is an invalid lady who is in Rhodes on holiday. She is cantankerous due to her condition, and she dislikes Amy terribly.
• Miss Amy Brinkhurst is Lady Denowweth's nurse. Amy is a terrible gossip, and when she discovers some photograph leading her to know who the killer is, she tries to blackmail him, and she is strangled to death.
• Professor Aldo Delisi is an archaelogist who works in the dig near the hotel where the other characters ares.
• Dr Schulz is Delisi's partner. He turns out to be a thief, stealing some of the pieces discovered in the dig. Angela finds him out and he runs away. 
• Sophia Delisi is Aldo Delisi's beautiful woman. Men keep falling for her, and one of them is Roy. He wants her to leave her husband, but Sophia refuses. For Sophia men are just a distraction, but she loves Aldo. Sophia was married previously, but her husband, who was cruel to her, died, and she married Aldo. There were two other men who were connected to Sophia who also died, and when Angela asks her if she suspects that Aldo may have killed them, Sophia says that he may have done, but she does not want to know.
• Roy Cavell is the American man who is murdered. The police think his death was an accident, but Angela discovered that it was murdered.
• Esther Grayson was Roy's fiancée, but he broke up with her when he fell for Sophia. Esther was very hurt as she had followed Roy to Rhodes because he was obsessed with archaelogy, but she did not really care much about it. Esther comes to terms with the fact that Roy was not the man for him. At the end of the book she replaces Amy as Lady Adela Denoweth's nurse.
• Kostis is the waiter at the hotel.
• Mr Florakis is the owner of the hotel.
• John B Peterson is an American businessman who comes to the hotel, and when Roy's body is found, he tells Angela that he is a bit of a sleuth. Angela discovers that Peterson is a fake name, and he is actually Jesse McKirdy, whose body was allegedly found in London. In reality it was McKirdy who killed a previous fellow student, Bill, who was the man who had offered Roy a job. Then he used Bill's passport to travel to Rhodes, and he had to kill Roy because he recognised him, and Amy Brinkhurst also discovered who he was. 
• Yannis is Kostis's brother. He is a fisherman, but he is also involved in smuggling. He is the one who helps Schultz with his criminal activities, and he tells Angela and Edgar.
• Jack Billings (Bill) was the rich friend who wanted Roy to work for him, so he planned to visit him in Rhodes. Yet, Jesse McKirdy killed him. 
• Georgios is Kostis and Yannis's sick father. Georgious was a notorious forger and was a friend of Edgar's in the past.