Waking the Dead/Characters

This entry contains spoilers for all aired UK episodes and so should be avoided if you are a fan of the show from outside the UK.

DSI (Detective Superintendent) Peter Boyd

A textbook example of Rabid Cop, Boyd is just as passionate as he is ruthless in his pursuit of justice. His willingness to bend or outright break rules and tendency getting angry with suspects has often brought him in trouble.

Boyd is also somewhat of a Deadpan Snarker, once involved three suspects in a Pub Quiz parody and was also arrested for drink driving. Has a weakness for pretty women.

His son, Luke, missing since the early 1990s, returned in Season 7, but ultimately committed suicide by drugs overdose. The precise impact on Boyd is as yet unclear.

Dr. Grace Foley

A Forensic Profiler with 30 years experience, Foley is mother to the team and tends to be used in a "tea and sympathy" role.

Eve Lockhart

Took over from Felix. Eve, The Coroner, was involved in mass grave excavation in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars.

DC Amelia "Mel" Silver

Mel was killed in the fourth season finale after being thrown off a roof. Her Jewish background would prove relevant in the later "Yahrzeit" episode, when an item of jewelery was sent to her last workplace. She'd been working on a case going back to WW 2 with an American Mossad agent.

DI Spencer "Spence" Jordan

Frequently involved in Good Cop, Bad Cop stuff with Boyd as the Bad Cop.

At the end of Season 5, he was shot in a Cliff Hanger ending, but emerged to have fully recovered in Season 6, getting a tattoo around the scar.

DS Stella Goodman

Born in the UK to an French mother and English father, her police officer father was killed and she moved to France, spending most of her childhood there.

Entering the Cold Case Squad after Mel Spencer's death, she was unwittingly spying on them for her godfather. However, her loyalty is now unquestioned.

Bi-lingual in French and English, Goodman is acknowledged to be the most attractive member of the team by most sources and usually has dyed red hair, but this is not always the case. However, she remains single, although her ownership of a cat is not confirmed one way or the other.

She is a qualified firearms officer.

Stella has been used in a Rabid Cop role, in one case threatening an Algerian suspect with nastiness and claiming she had a relative paralysed in a terrorist attack. Boyd congratulated her on a successful deception- she inferred it that possibly wasn't.


 * Fair Cop