Elijah Baley

The protagonist of The Robots of Dawn and the preceding novels (The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, incidents from which are referred throughout the novel), Baley is a 45-year-old, grade C-7 City homicide detective whose earlier exploits solving a murder on the planet Solaris have won him fame throughout the universe, thanks to a hyperwave dramatization. He hates the notoriety and false images that the drama instills in people. When excited or under great stress, Baley exclaims, "Jehoshaphat!"—so often that Gladia Delmarre/Solaria, upon seeing him again, declares that she is sure it will be his first word.

Baley is relentless when following a line of questioning and follows hunches in the absence of hard evidence. At times his temper flairs. On the Spacer world Aurora, where he is called to investigate a "roboticide," his questions are considered invasion of privacy and he...