A Death in Cornwall

Gabriel’s inner circle of friends includes Timothy, Christopher, and Sarah. Timothy is a detective sergeant with the Devon and Cornwall police. In A Death in Cornwall, Timothy is working on the Chopper serial murder case. Ingrid jokingly refers to him as “Inspector Dalgliesh” (282), an allusion to the fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh, who serves as the protagonist of numerous books by P. D. James and of the eponymous British TV series adapted from those books. Timothy doesn’t believe that the Chopper killed Charlotte, so he asks Gabriel to help him find the real killer; his call is the impetus for the novel’s main plot. Over the course of the novel, Timothy saves evidence from Charlotte’s case for Gabriel and helps Christopher save Gabriel. At the end of the novel, Timothy solves the Chopper case because a burglary ring admits to a theft that was not reported by the killer, “Miles Lennox” (403). Timothy is loyal to Gabriel, watches Gabriel’s boat when Gabriel is in Venice, and encourages Gabriel to buy a cottage in Cornwall.

Christopher worked for the Special Air Service. After his unit was attacked in Iraq and he was presumed dead, he went to work as an assassin for the Orsati Olive Oil Company. Later, Christopher joined “His Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service” (228), or SIS. He goes by the alias Peter Marlowe, a possible allusion to the fictional detective Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s mystery novels, and also claims to be named “David” at one point (334). Christopher drives a “Bentley Continental GT” (282), smokes Marlboros, and is part of Gabriel’s heist to steal documents from Harris Weber. Later, he helps Timothy save Gabriel when he is captured by Robinson. Like Gabriel, Christopher is able to carry a gun into places where guns are prohibited because he is “not a normal SIS officer” but a special agent (339). Christopher is also married to Sarah.

Sarah is a former CIA officer who went to work in the art world after leaving the intelligence community. She manages “a sometimes-solvent Old Master art gallery” called Isherwood Fine Arts and reports to Julian Isherwood (11). In addition to being known for her mental prowess, Sarah is known for being “an attractive woman [and] stylishly attired” (277). A static character in A Death in Cornwall, she is not very involved in Charlotte’s case and expresses regret about this after learning what Christopher and Gabriel were up to.

Ingrid Johansen, unlike Sarah, is extensively involved in Charlotte’s case, and her opinions about stealing change over the course of the novel. She is a Danish “professional thief and skilled computer hacker” (106). Timothy and other men describe Ingrid as attractive. Gabriel describes her as a “climate alarmist” (107), similar to his daughter, Irene. Irene and Ingrid also physically resemble one another. Ingrid’s “lifelong clinical compulsion to steal” is cured after she visits the signadora in Corsica (106). The signadora claims to have removed the evil eye from Ingrid, and after she does so, Ingrid loses her desire to steal. She is already wealthy (although unable to stay in many luxury hotels because of her criminal record) and no longer needs to steal for money. Ingrid marvels at how she does not want to steal a cashmere stole, cash, and other items. She thinks, “Once the very sight of such luxuries would have set her ablaze. Now, strangely, she felt nothing at all” (262). In this way, Ingrid experiences the most profound transformation of all the characters.

Philippe Lambert is another member of the heist crew. Unlike Ingrid, he doesn’t have a history with Gabriel but meets everyone in the series for the first time in A Death in Cornwall. Ingrid discovers that Lambert hacked Harris Weber, and Gabriel recruits him to help with the heist. Earlier in his life, Lambert worked for France’s foreign intelligence service and a “Swedish-owned corporate security firm” before working for Robinson and “Antioch Holdings” (209, 211). Once Robinson made Lambert an accomplice in multiple murders, including Charlotte’s, he stole important documents for leverage. Lambert’s decision to stop working for the antagonist happens before he meets Gabriel, but he further commits to his transformation by agreeing to work with Gabriel to take down Harris Weber.

Rene Monjean is the third member of the heist crew. He is a thief and owner of the yacht Mistral, which becomes the crew’s headquarters. Monjean’s compulsion to steal remains the same throughout A Death in Cornwall; he is a somewhat static character. This makes him a foil to Ingrid.

Trevor Robinson runs the Harris Weber law firm and is one of the main antagonists of the novel. He is a retired MI5 counterintelligence officer who is 64 years old and has “gray-blond hair” (260). Robinson arranged the murders of both Professor Blake and Emanuel Cohen, the rightful owner of the stolen Picasso. These were carried out by an assassin; Robinson is not discovered as the person behind the murders until late in the novel. Robinson abducts Gabriel and Ingrid and is killed when Christopher and Timothy rescue them.

Lucinda Graves is the other main antagonist of the novel. She runs Lambeth Wealth Management and is married to Hugh Graves, the British home secretary who runs for prime minister. In their marriage, she is the one with the money. Lucinda is also on the board of trustees for Courtauld Gallery and known for her “smoky contralto speaking voice” (299). As a trusted client of Harris Weber, she asked Robinson to have Charlotte killed after learning about Charlotte’s research on the stolen Picasso. Her crimes are revealed by Samantha at the end of the novel. Samantha obtains a recording of Lucinda’s distinctive voice plotting with Radcliff to take down Prime Minister Hillary Edwards. She and her husband have to leave their jobs, and the country, after their conspiracy is revealed in the news. However, they find financial success in Malta.

Lord Michael Radcliff is another client of Harris Weber and the treasurer of the Conservative Party. He receives a political donation from a Russian client of Harris Weber, Valentin Federov, and implicates Prime Minister Edwards in the donation process, when in fact she didn’t approve of it. After he resigns from his position, he receives even more money from Federov, whose interests clearly lie in Russia disrupting the governance of England. Eventually, he talks to Samantha about other people involved in the conspiracy to oust the prime minister and undermine her attempts to limit money laundering. Radcliff is a minor antagonist who ends up helping Gabriel’s case.

Nicholas Lovegrove, an “art adviser to the vastly rich” (25), represents Anna Rolfe, the “world’s most famous violinist” (91), in selling forged paintings to a gallery in the Geneva Freeport. Gabriel restores a painting for Lovegrove in exchange for his help uncovering the stolen Picasso.

Anna worked with Gabriel on previous cases and is in love with him. Her father stole art from Jewish people during the Holocaust, and she inherited his fortune. She makes music to try to redeem her family name—the same reason she helps Gabriel with art-related cases.

Naomi Wallach creates fake provenances for Gabriel’s forged paintings, which Anna sells. She works for the Louvre and devotes a large amount of her time to returning paintings to their rightful owners: the heirs of people killed in the Holocaust. Naomi is the one who initially asked Charlotte to research the Picasso, as she thought it might be stolen.

Geoffrey Holland is the “director of the Courtauld Gallery” (303). In exchange for Gabriel’s restoration of a painting, Geoffrey allows Gabriel to view security footage that shows Charlotte meeting with Lucinda.

Edmond Ricard owns Galerie Ricard in the Geneva Freeport. He “was a washerwoman” or, in other words, assisted Harris Weber with laundering money through the Geneva Freeport using the art strategy of tax-free transactions between shell companies (216). The assassin who killed Emanuel Cohen and Charlotte also kills Ricard shortly after he agrees to trade Anna’s forged paintings for the stolen Picasso. He is assassinated because this sale went against the wishes of Harris Weber.

Don Anton Orsati runs the Orsati Olive Oil Company—a “legitimate front through which the don laundered the profits of his real business, which was murder for hire” (225). He employed Christopher to kill Gabriel and Anna, but Christopher refused (Christopher killed everyone else Orsati asked him to kill). In this installation of the Gabriel Allon series, Orsati offers protection for Lambert after Robinson tries to have him assassinated.

Signadora is the only name given for an old woman in Corsica. She is a psychic, and Gabriel says that she is “never wrong” (249). In addition to providing the code for the safe in Harris Weber, the signadora takes the occhju (evil eye) off Ingrid, removing Ingrid’s compulsion to steal. The signadora’s apprentice, Danielle, looks like Ingrid did when she was a child.

Vera Hobbs is a baker, and the first chapter of A Death in Cornwall is narrated from her perspective. She discovers that Charlotte has been murdered. Her friends in town include Dottie Cox, who runs the Lamb and Flag pub, and Duncan Reynolds. In Chapter 60, Vera throws a party for Gabriel where he admits that he used to live in Cornwall under the name Giovanni Rossi.

Charlotte Blake was an art history professor at Oxford. She authored several books, including Picasso: the War Years. Her investigation of the stolen Picasso resulted in her death: She was murdered to keep the Harris Weber law firm’s money laundering a secret. Without Gabriel’s involvement, her death would have been written off as just another murder by the serial killer known as “the Chopper.” Her lover, Leonard Bradley, was the one who recommended Charlotte talk to Lucinda about the painting. He is a rich man and is married to Cordelia Chamberlain, a rich woman. He is a successful money manager with one of the largest houses in Cornwall.

Samantha Cooke works for The Telegraph and creates the “Picasso Papers” news story. This series of articles details the prevalence of money laundering in the art market and explains the Harris Weber law firm’s extensive involvement in this shady practice. However, before she writes these stories, she writes an incorrect story accusing Prime Minister Edwards of accepting an unethical campaign donation from Federov. When Samantha learns that she was used as part of the conspiracy to oust Edwards from her position, she publicly admits her mistake and goes even deeper in her coverage of the London Laundromat.

Amelia March works for ARTnews. She is writing a profile of Gabriel and appears only briefly at the beginning of A Death in Cornwall. Silva, the author, uses her to introduce key information from the previous novels in the Gabriel Allon series for new readers.

Christoph Bittle is the director-general of the NDB, which is Switzerland’s internal security and foreign intelligence service. He is a friend of Gabriel’s and helps him keep the murder of Ricard under wraps.

Jacques Menard works on the French “art squad” (165). Ingrid calls him “Inspector Clouseau” (168, 171), an allusion to the fictional Inspector Jacques Clouseau in Blake Edwards’s Pink Panther series of detective novel parodies, which were later adapted into several movies and an animated television series. Menard is also a friend of Gabriel’s and covers up Gabriel’s killing of the assassin Andreas Hoffman, or Klaus Muller. The assassin rides a motorcycle and kills not only Charlotte but also Emanuel Cohen and Ricard.

Graham Seymour is the “director-general of the Secret Intelligence Service” (318). He works closely with his counterpart at MI5, Amanda Wallace, and is Christopher’s boss. Graham is friends with Gabriel and helps him frame the Russians for the deaths of Robinson and his men. This protects not only Christopher but also Timothy for their actions during the rescue of Gabriel.