Camille Preaker
Camille is a young, ernest journalist living in Chicago and working for a relatively small local newspaper. Since the death of her sister, Marian, when they both were children, she has self-harmed and has a myriad of scars across her body where she has carved words into it after hallucinating them first. She has been hospitalized for self-harm but seems to be moving forward with her life, although she finds her work quite depressing and uninspiring.
When she returns to her home town to write about the disappearance and murder of two teenage girls, her life changes forever. After briefly reuniting with her estranged mother, she comes to realize that her sister was killed by her mother who suffers from Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, a mental illness. She also makes friends with her half-sister Amma whom she comes to view as a victim but later realizes is the perpetrator of the crimes against the two murdered girls.
Amma Crellin
Only thirteen years old, Amma is a sociopath and highly manipulative. She is a party girl and a drinker, but hides this from her mother by acting younger and more innocent than her years. She is Wind Gap's it girl but also its mean girl as well. Amma manages to wrap Camille around her little finger and portray herself as another victim of their mother's sickness, but in reality is the murderer of three teen girls because she is jealous of them.
Adora Crellin
Adora is the mother of Camille, Marian and Amma, and suffers from Munchausen's Disease by Proxy, a mental illness that causes her to make her daughter sick in order to get attention for herself. She ends up killing Marian and attempts to poison Camille, and because of this is also believed to be the killer of Ann and Natalie as well. Adora is distant with Camille because she has never really liked her and has also never made any secret of this. In the town of Wind Gap she is influential because the Crellins are rich and own many businesses that the citizens of Wind Gap rely on for work. She is also the social maven of Wind Gap.
Frank Curry
One of the few positive influences in Camille's life is her editor, Frank Curry, who encourages her both professionally and personally, and seems to genuinely care about her. He believes that she will benefit from returning to Wind Gap to cover the murder there, and knows that there are unresolved issues from her childhood that she needs to address if she has any hope of putting the past behind her. Curry thinks of Camille like a daughter and when she begins to unravel emotionally and mentally at the end of the novel takes her into his home where he and his wife treat her as if she really is their own child.
Detective Richard Willis
Willis is called from Kansas to investigate the murders in Wind Gap, and amazes Camille by admitting he believes that her mother murdered Marian, as well as Ann and Natalie. He is a good detective who follows the evidence and works a case without jumping to conclusions or succumbing to the temptation of making the evidence fit his suspect.
Willis claims that he is smitten with Camille and that there is nothing about her that could turn him away but this turns out to be untrue when he is so horrified and repelled by her scars that he breaks off their relationship.
Ann Nash
Ann is the first child in Wind Gap to go missing. She is just nine years old. Her body is discovered shortly before a second child goes missing.
Natalie Keane
Natalie is ten years old and the second victim of the serial killer at work in Wind Gap. Her brother, who is eighteen, is initially considered a person of interest in her death because of the flimsy nature of his alibi.
