A Killing Cold

Connor functions as both a deuteragonist and an unwitting antagonist, representing the complex intersection of genuine love and systemic privilege that characterizes wealthy families’ relationships with outsiders. Marshall presents him as a dynamic character whose fundamental goodness is undermined by his complicity in his family’s mechanisms of truth suppression. His defining trait throughout most of the novel is his desperate need to maintain his idealized version of his father, Liam, which requires him to actively suppress inconvenient truths about his family’s past. This willful ignorance extends to his relationship with Theo—while his love for her appears genuine, his decision to track her down through Harper’s art show without revealing this deception demonstrates how even well-intentioned members of powerful families participate in controlling narratives and manipulating others.

Connor’s character embodies The Thin Line Between Loyalty and Complicity, as his devotion to preserving his father’s memory initially prevents him from recognizing the harm that his family has caused. His gentle, worshipful treatment of Theo reflects both genuine affection and an unconscious attempt to repair his family’s damage, yet until the novel’s final chapters, he struggles to prioritize truth over family reputation. In the end, Connor chooses his love for Theo over his family’s self-protective lies. With Theo at his side, he forces his family to confront their secrets. His choice to take Theo’s surname symbolizes this radical shift in his priorities.

Liam, though deceased throughout the novel’s present timeline, serves as a false antagonist, as the novel presents him as a villain whose actions continue to shape every character’s fate. He appears as the “antlered man” in Theo’s recurring nightmares, both a literal memory and a symbolic manifestation of masculine violence and predation. Marshall crafts him as a round character revealed through others’ conflicting memories—Connor’s idealized father-hero, Rose’s unfaithful husband, and Theo’s monstrous pursuer. Later events largely vindicate Connor’s idealized image of his father, as it is revealed that Liam did not have an affair with Mallory but instead only sought to protect her from Nick’s violent abuse. Though he initially appears threatening in Theo’s fractured memories, she discovers that he was trying to protect both her and her mother from Nick, the novel’s true villain.

Alexis serves as a complex secondary character whose fierce protectiveness masks deep trauma from what she was led to believe was her accidental killing of Mallory and her father’s subsequent (purported) suicide. Her defining traits include fierce intelligence, protective instincts, and a surprising capacity for empathy that she reveals in private conversations with Theo. Marshall presents her as a dynamic character whose initial hostility toward Theo gradually transforms into grudging respect.

Her relationship with Paloma provides crucial insight into how family secrets poison even healthy relationships, as her guilt over a moment of infidelity connects directly to her unresolved trauma about what she believes are her father’s betrayals. Her possession of photographs showing a bruised woman suggests that the family’s secrets have been as distressing for her as for anyone. The deepest secret of all pertains to her, as she has been led to believe that she killed Mallory and that her father died by suicide as a result of her actions. That both of these beliefs turn out to be false—engineered by Louise and Magnus—shows that she, too, is a victim of the family’s culture of secrecy.

Rose represents the complex position of women within wealthy families who must choose between their own dignity and their children’s security. Her character demonstrates the power of Wealth as a Means to Suppress the Truth by forcing victims to participate in their own silencing. Her conversation with Theo about the importance of a prenuptial agreement reveals hard-won wisdom about the need to protect oneself within marriage, while her carefully controlled responses to questions about Liam’s death show how thoroughly she has internalized the need to protect the family narrative.

Marshall presents Rose as someone whose genteel exterior conceals both strength and deep wounds. Her warning that Connor should “stay off the lodge roof” provides crucial misdirection about the location of Liam’s death (68), while her visible tension around discussions of the past suggests that she knows far more than she reveals. Her character embodies the tragic figure of the woman who sacrifices her own truth to protect her children’s inheritance and stability.

Trevor functions as a catalyst character whose reckless actions force family secrets into the open. His sexual relationship with Olena and his cruel burning of Theo’s hand suggest someone who uses power to harm others. His hostile, boorish, and reckless behavior positions him early on as a likely antagonist—a piece of misdirection intended to generate surprise as readers realize that the true antagonist is the seemingly kind and gentle Nick.

Trevor’s defining trait is destructive entitlement, using his knowledge of family members’ secrets as weapons when he feels threatened or judged. His creation of the ornament display represents a twisted form of truth telling. It marks him as vindictive and seemingly cruel, but in a novel where secrecy is the deepest form of violence, Trevor’s subversive truth telling marks him as an unlikely ally to protagonist Theo.

His character demonstrates how the family’s wealth enables him to escape consequences for increasingly serious crimes, from DUI to assault, while his resentment grows from being simultaneously protected and despised by his relatives. Marshall uses Trevor to show how protection from consequences prevents moral development, but the support he lends to Theo suggests that even someone as emotionally stunted as Trevor is capable of growth.

Magnus and Louise represent the generational power structure that maintains the family’s wealth and secrets. Magnus embodies traditional masculine authority, using hunting and business metaphors to evaluate others while maintaining the family’s reputation through strategic silence and financial pressure. His comment that “you can’t escape what’s in your blood” reveals his belief in inherited character while ironically describing his own family’s inherited capacity for violence and deception (56).

Louise functions as the family’s moral arbiter and gatekeeper, as she is immediately suspicious of outsiders who might threaten their carefully maintained narrative. Together, she and Magnus represent how wealthy families operate as institutions rather than mere relationships, with established protocols for managing threats and maintaining control across generations.