Characters in The Nature of the Beast

Armand Gamache

Retired Chief Inspector living in Three Pines, drawn back into a case that begins with a missing child.

Also in Still Life, The Cruelest Month, The Murder Stone, The Brutal Telling, Bury Your Dead, A Trick of the Light, The Beautiful Mystery, How the Light Gets In, The Long Way Home, A Great Reckoning

Laurent Lepage

A nine-year-old boy known for wild stories — the last of which no one believed.

Reine-Marie Gamache

Gamache's wife, settled with him in the village.

Also in The Murder Stone, A Great Reckoning, All the Devils Are Here, The Madness of Crowds, The Grey Wolf, The Black Wolf, Miss Wolcott's Ghost

Jean-Guy Beauvoir

Gamache's former second-in-command and son-in-law.

Also in Still Life, Bury Your Dead, A Trick of the Light, The Beautiful Mystery, How the Light Gets In, A Great Reckoning, Glass Houses, Kingdom of the Blind, A Better Man, All the Devils Are Here

Ruth Zardo

The village poet, whose past proves entangled with what is found in the woods.

Also in Bury Your Dead, How the Light Gets In, Glass Houses, The Madness of Crowds, A World of Curiosities