Characters in The Life We Bury

Joe Talbert

A University of Minnesota student who picks a dying parolee as the subject of a class biography and ends up investigating his old case.

Carl Iverson

A dying Vietnam veteran paroled after thirty years in prison for the murder of a teenage girl, whose story Joe sets out to write.

Lila Nash

Joe's skeptical neighbor, a law student whose know-how helps him dig into the decades-old case.

Also in The heavens may fall

Jeremy (The Life We Bury)

Joe's autistic younger brother, whose care and Joe's guilt over leaving him behind drive much of the book's emotional weight.

Max Rupert

A police detective introduced in this book who later leads his own series.

Also in The heavens may fall, The deep dark descending