Inspector Tyador Borlu

Inspector Tyador Borlu is the main character of the novel. He is in charge of the investigation of the murder victim found in the beginning of the novel. Borlu enlists the help of Lizbyet Corwi because she is familiar with the neighborhood where the body is dumped from when she was a street cop.

Borlu is not married. He does, however, have two lovers. He sees each of the women when he has time and when it suits him. While one of the women is simply for pleasure, the other woman is someone he shares an intellectual and sexual level. Borlu has an inner struggle with good and evil. Because he is from Beszel, he is taught that anything that has to do with Ul Qoma is evil.

Borlu continuously skirts the edge of the law to solve the case. He keeps information from his counterpart...