Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

Richard Lopez

There are a lot of enemies in the novel, but the immediate one for Nailer is his dad, Richard Lopez, whose sinister presences overshadows our main man's entire future. Richard Lopez is everything Nailer doesn't want to be—violent, addicted to booze and drugs, erratic, and just plain mean. Though he's Nailer's father, the two could not be more different. Nailer is good; Richard is not. Nailer is empathetic; Richard would sell his own mother to make a buck. Though it's hard to watch Nailer cause his father's death, we also totally think Richard deserves it.

Pyce

If Nita had ever waved her arms and said, "This conspiracy goes all the way to the top!" the guy at the top would be Pyce. He never physically shows up as a character because he hires people to do his dirty work for him; instead, his presence looms over Nita as a threat against her person. We don't have to meet him to know he's a bad dude, especially when he decides to hire Richard Lopez (what a coincidence) to join the search for Nita.