Viscount Abercrombie
The Viscount is actually the murder victim in the novel and so we learn more about him not from his actions throughout the novel but from what the police discover about him during their investigation. The Viscount is a member of the English aristocracy by birth, and is fighting in World War One because he feels it is his moral duty; however, he is beginning to feel that the war is futile and that the men on the front lines are being used as cannon fodder by inept generals who do not really know what they are doing. He expresses much of this changing viewpoint through his poetry; he is a poet, and after the war will become known as a war poet. He is also gay, but in the closet. He is believed to be based loosely on Siegfried Sassoon who was confined to the psychiatric floor of a military hospital after suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, physical injuries and depression. Sassoon simultaneously wanted to return to action because of his loyalty to his men, and wanted to speak out against a war he felt was essentially a waste of young lives.
Inspector Kingsley
Kingsley is in charge of the investigation into the murder of Viscount Abercrombie. He is a conundrum of a character because it is difficult to decide if he is a coward, using a moral argument to avoid going to fight in World War One, or if he is a genuinely morally upstanding man whose conscience is preventing him from participating in the war effort. He is not exactly a conscientious objector - he is neither Quaker nor pacifist - but more of an academic snob who feels that the war flies in the face of his fundamental appreciation of logic. He therefore refuses to fight, ostracizing himself from almost everyone he cares about. He is jailed for desertion of duty and his wife, Agnes, begins to despise him for being a coward and bringing shame to the family, specifically to his young son.
The task of solving the Viscount's murder is a kind of redemption for Kingsley. He is forced to go to the Western Front of Belgium in order to conduct the investigation where he proves that he is more than prepared to put himself in danger in pursuit of answers to his questions; he wanders into No Man's Land at considerable risk because it is where the investigation leads him. He does not think much of Captain Shannon and considers him to be a bully. Ultimately he does redeem himself by getting to the bottom of what happened to the Viscount.
Captain Shannon
It is unclear whether Shannon is a psychopath and a deeply flawed human being by nature, or as a result of an emotional unraveling caused by his experiences in the war. The truth is that it is probably a combination of the two things; his psychopathy has been made far worse by his experiences and the horrors he has seen. He has become indifferent to the vision of death that he sees every day.
Captain Shannon is a chick magnet; he is handsome, confident (borderline arrogant) and charismatic, but his good looks and charm are a thin veneer that is easily scratched, and beneath he hates women and does not think twice about forcing himself on them. He is disdainful and a known misogynist, but his hate is not confined to the opposite sex. He has no patience for conscientious objectors, and so his relationship with Inspector Kingsley, whom he does not want to speak with or answer to because he considers him to be a coward. He doesn't believe in post traumatic stress disorder, but believes it to be a fake condition that soldiers claim to have in order to return home. Shannon is a flawed human being whom it is impossible to like.
Nurse Murray
Nurse Murray is a character fashioned in the image of Chaucer's Wife of Bath; she is bawdy, vulgar and does not mind who knows it. There are no airs and graces about her at all. She is a feminist and always looking to advance the cause of women's rights. She has a history of involvement in social politics and was a suffragette, at the forefront of marches demanding the vote for women. She felt an enormous responsibility to become part of the war effort, and becoming a military nurse was the best way she could think of supporting the men at the front. She and Kingsley begin an affair; it is a light that burns extremely brightly, but for a very short time.
