Oliver Harding

Oliver Harding is the main character and first person narrator of the novel. In the narrative present, Oliver is attempting to record his version of recent events. Because he is guilty of murdering his colleague Ruhaba Khan, Oliver feels desperate to confess the truth. He therefore sets to penning his account “in a fresh notebook” to relieve himself of his culpability, remorse, and grief (1). All of the scenes set in the narrative present, therefore, feature Oliver working on his personal writing endeavor. Meanwhile, he must communicate regularly with a pair of FBI agents investigating Ruhaba’s death and Adil’s supposed involvement in it.

Oliver is a professor of English at an unnamed university in Seattle, Washington. When he first started working at this university, he was married to a woman named Emily. Not long later, Oliver got tenure. Then he and Emily had their daughter Kathryn...