The Stranger

Corinne is a main character, Adam’s wife, and Thomas and Ryan’s mother. She is hyper-focused and ambitious, having planned out her life after she was forced to leave Cedarfield when her father died. She moved into a similar house for her triumphant return, which Adam felt was inevitable because Cedarfield is “deeply ingrained in her DNA” (149). Corinne is devoted to her sons. She joined the lacrosse team board as treasurer to keep a closer eye on their progress on the team, while also working as a teacher. Adam describes Corinne as beautiful; she always wears a pair of diamond studs from their 15-year wedding anniversary, which she only takes off for sleeping and showering.

Years before the novel’s events, Corinne became anxious when she believed that Adam might have been having an affair with a colleague. She faked a pregnancy and miscarriage to bring Adam back to her. She kept the secret for two years until the stranger appeared. This revelation breaks the trust in Adam and Corinne’s relationship, but Adam comes to understand her feelings of desperation. Tripp frames Corinne for the lacrosse money theft, and when she confronts him, he kills her and buries her in the woods.

Chris, otherwise known as “the stranger,” is the text’s main antagonist. Chris formed a small group who investigate nefarious online activity and threaten to expose people’s secrets for money. He works with Ingrid, Gabrielle, Merton, and Eduardo at Downing Place, the host of websites like Fake-A-Pregnancy.com.

Chris claims that he is most interested in the moral choice he offers his targets, as he wants people to reveal their secrets instead of paying the blackmailing ransoms. Chris thinks that his targets should be grateful to him for helping them live more honest lives, but most of his victims are angry at having their privacy violated and their agency upended. Chris’s illegal activities destroy people’s lives and leave a trail of hurt and violence in their wake, with the novel exposing how Chris’s self-justifications are ultimately wrong-headed and dangerous.

Chris is consumed by exposing secrets because he learned at 16 that his father wasn’t his biological father, which he thinks destroyed his life. Chris wears a baseball cap to hide his identity and goes to extreme lengths to conceal the operation’s hideout on Lake Charmaine. His hubris toward his anonymity ironically leads to the group’s demise, as he doesn’t expect anyone to track them down. Chris is the only member of the group who survives, and he helps Adam fight Kuntz by knocking Kuntz off balance. By the end of the novel, Chris is again living anonymously.

Tripp is one of the text’s antagonists and Adam and Corinne’s neighbor. He is president of the lacrosse team board, and he briefly worked at a New York ad agency before starting his own business.

Tripp is outwardly confident and friendly, always wearing athletic clothes to indicate his apparent approachability. Tripp is a family man and is willing to hurt anyone who threatens his family. He has five children and a wife, Becky. For most of the text, Tripp conceals the secret that he’s broke and stole from the lacrosse team. He hides his “dumpy” office in an expensive neighborhood, and he masks his dark behavior behind a veneer of charisma. When Corinne threatens to expose him, Tripp kills her. Adam in turn kills Tripp when he discovers that Tripp murdered Corinne, after Tripp threatens to frame Adam for the crime.

Johanna is a secondary character and the chief of police in Beachwood, Ohio. Johanna feels out of her depth working on a homicide case, as she usually only deals with “traffic violations and bicycle licenses and maybe a domestic dispute” (200). However, she investigates Heidi’s case off the books, even after the county police take over, because Heidi was such a close friend and she wants to avenge her.

Johanna acts based on both facts and intuition. She follows her gut feelings, but she also seeks evidence to corroborate her theories. She initially suspects Adam of killing Heidi and Ingrid, and she pursues him aggressively to catch him in a lie. Johanna and Adam grow close as they investigate together. She helps Adam cover up Tripp’s death and makes sure he’s exonerated so that the children will still have their father around.

Thomas and Ryan are minor characters and Adam and Corinne’s children. Thomas is 16, and Ryan is 12. Both boys play lacrosse. Though the stranger leads Adam to doubt his paternity, he believes that the boys look and act just like their parents. Thomas is more like Adam: He is a laidback, friendly boy who doesn’t like to show off. Now that he’s in high school, Thomas wants his parents to treat him like an adult. He grows frustrated by Adam’s attempt to protect him from the truth, as it only makes him more worried. Thomas helps Adam’s investigation by showing him and Johanna how to use the phone-tracking app.

Ryan, on the other hand, is more like Corinne: He is a rule follower and gets anxious quickly when things aren’t predictable. At the end, the boys and Adam choose to stay in Cedarfield, where they’ll be close to Corinne’s memory.

Kuntz is a minor antagonist and former NYPD officer. Kuntz was fired from his job in disgrace after a Black suspect died following a rough altercation. He claims that the event was twisted by the media to look like a racially charged crime. Since then, Kuntz has grown hateful toward the world in general after losing his NYPD job.

Kuntz now works private security for a Christian tech start up, but his boss’s adultery threatens a huge $17 million payout that Kuntz will receive. Securing this payout motivates all of Kuntz’s extreme actions in the text, as he wants to use the money for his son Robby’s cancer treatment, his other two children’s schooling, and his wife Barb’s general happiness. Kuntz believes that family is the most important thing in a person’s life, and he detests anyone who doesn’t feel the same way. Kuntz uses his NYPD badge to get access to information, and when people don’t talk, he tortures them until they do. Kuntz is willing to kill anyone who knows about his boss’s secret, and in the end, he kills multiple people. He gets sentenced to life in prison for his crimes.

Bob is a minor antagonist and the head coach of Adam’s sons’ lacrosse teams. Bob has a loud, arrogant personality and likes to show off his possessions and family’s accomplishments. He is extremely competitive and vindictive when he feels slighted.

Bob embodies The Precarious Façade of Suburban Success in Cedarfield, as behind his boisterous behavior, his life is falling apart. He has been unemployed for a year and can’t find a new job. He desperately wants to hold onto the life he’s built because he wants to show other people, like his father, that he’s still the breadwinner. Bob is under the impression that Corinne wants to pin the lacrosse account theft on him, which further threatens his reputation and finances, so he tries to silence her by hiring Chris to dig up dirt on her.

Suzanne is a minor, flat character. Corinne met Suzanne at a coffee shop and formed an impromptu social group with her and other regulars. For all the time Corinne knew Suzanne, Suzanne was faking being pregnant. She craves attention and connection with others, as her ex-husband, Harold, was not attentive to her. Suzanne “always wanted kids” (187), but due to Harold’s sterility, she couldn’t conceive naturally. Suzanne claims that she faked her pregnancies because she chased the dopamine rush that doing so produced.

After being caught by Corinne and exposed by the stranger, Suzanne went to therapy and now feels she’s doing better, even though she’s now divorced and living alone. She is grateful to Corinne for not judging her, so she helps Adam in his quest to find her.

Rinsky is a minor, static character and one of Adam’s clients. He is a retired lieutenant colonel of the Kasselton Police Department and continues to work cold cases with other retirees as a hobby. He helps Adam in his investigation by showing him old police tricks and running background checks.

Rinsky has three adult children and lives with his wife, Eunice, whose health is rapidly deteriorating. The Rinskys want to live out their days in the home they bought when Rinsky came back from the Vietnam War. The couple are under threat from the mayor, and developers who want to tear down their home for a gentrification project. Rinsky stubbornly refuses all offers, as he and Eunice care more about their memories in the house than a payout. Rinsky hires Adam and pushes him to do anything he can to succeed.