Characters

Dramatis Personæ

After a solid week of woodshedding on Hard Lesson, a solid picture is starting to emerge, including of course the cast of characters that drive the story. Provided here is a list of major characters that have appeared so far.

Prof. Jay Valentine, PhD – Our “hero”, Dr. Valentine is a full-time private eye and a part-time college professor, in the employ of tiny Lester College, in Hoboken, NJ. Through an accident of fate, Valentine has ended up with a clientèle almost exclusively academic in nature, and has developed a system of accepting as partial payment for his services writing credits on major journal articles and research studies, giving him a mostly unearned reputation in the scholastic and research communities as a polymath of unrivaled proportions. At any given moment, he’d probably rather be playing chess…and when actually happens to be in his office, he usually is.

Ruby Tilden, M.S., PhD Candidate – Valentine’s grad student and gal Friday, Ruby is a classic hardass who somehow manages to successfully pursue a career in academics while simultaneously serving as both an invaluable assistant and a guardian angel to our hero. It doesn’t matter what Valentine needs, “train tickets, a late-night telegram to a connection at some far-flung archaeological dig, a fresh fifth of bourbon, bail money…”, Ruby somehow has it before him before he’s even finished asking. And although he’d die before he ever admitted it, “the dame could beat [him] at chess a solid four times out of five.”

Janice Davies, PhD – Valentine’s client, a research fellow working under the missing Dr. Archibald Hannity of Yale. She’s on the cusp of publishing a very important paper on the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, and it’s unclear whether she cares more about recovering Hannity or his research materials. A highly confusing mix of intellect, ambition, and the sort of curves that would “cast a real pleasing shadow on a fella’s window shade”, Dr. Davies (or “Legs”, as Valentine calls her in his mind) is a question mark where Valentine just wants a period.

Mildred “Millie” Dobbs, PhD – A slightly ridiculous, semi-retired professor at NYU, Millie serves many vital roles for Valentine, establishing connections with both institutions and academics, as well as bringing him up to speed on current research in whatever field his client happens to be in. Although she “insists on delivering every single, solitary word like she’s Lady Macbeth and it’s opening night”, Valentine loves Millie “like a spinster aunt”, and appreciates her vital role in his work, as well as her unwavering loyalty.

Archibald Hannity, PhD – A professor and researcher at Yale, Hannity came into possession of a mysterious folio–alleged by Dr. Davies to have contained Shakespeare’s lost plays Cardenio and Love’s Labour’s Won–shortly before disappearing…leaving nothing behind but two shell casings, a small pool of blood, a missing folio, and a storm of doubts and suspicion.