58 pages • 1 hour read
Elle CosimanoFinlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Finlay “Finn” Donovan
Finn, the novel’s first-person narrator and protagonist, is a 31-year-old romantic suspense author living in South Riding, Virginia, with her two small children and her friend and nanny, Vero. Finn is an antihero character in some ways: Along with her many positive characteristics come some decidedly less heroic ones. Finn is clever, creative, and determined, showing an exceptional capacity to think on her feet and solve problems and highlighting The Necessity of Resilience and Determination. She is so devoted to her children that, despite her financial woes, she pays a live-in nanny to help care for them and is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to protect their father from harm, despite how poorly Steven treats her.
Finn demonstrates mature and compassionate behavior toward her ex-husband and Vero: Both give her cause to lash out, but she instead summons understanding and forgiveness. She is fiercely loyal to Vero and is willing to make significant sacrifices for her, supporting the text’s thematic arguments about Women’s Networks of Support. She also shows compassion for Bree, speaking gently to the young woman about her feelings for Steven. Finn is also able to acknowledge her own faults and breaks off her relationship with Julian because she believes it is in his best interest.
On the other hand, Finn also has some very human flaws. Steven’s mistreatment of her has affected her self-esteem and, despite the progress she has made since the divorce, she can be insecure and sometimes has to be reminded by others to value herself appropriately. Some of the chaos in Finn’s life is of her own making. She has trouble prioritizing things like her writing career, which leads to her constantly being under time pressure. She can be impulsive, and throughout the story, she gets herself into ridiculous situations because of initial hasty decisions that lead to a cascade of increasingly complicated results. This aspect of her character supports the novel’s theme of The Irony and Absurdity of Life, while her willingness to keep trying despite all the complications conveys the theme of the necessity of resilience and determination.
Finn generally tries to be ethical and feels guilty when she lies to others or takes shortcuts, but she is often willing to bend her rules in the service of a higher cause. She lies to both Julian and Nick and, at the end of the novel, is willing to engage in a romantic relationship with Nick despite the secrets she must keep from him—secrets that endanger both his happiness and his career. She is willing to bury bodies on Steven’s property, not once but twice, despite the legal danger this puts Steven in. She impersonates people, takes an expensive car under false pretenses, commits breaking and entering at Steven’s farm, and hauls around part of a corpse for several days before she can find a place to inter it. Despite these flaws, however, Finn’s upbeat and comic narration and her generally good intentions make her a sympathetic character.
Veronica “Vero” Ruiz/Ramirez
Vero is Finn’s friend and live-in nanny. Currently an accounting student at a local community college, Vero has a mysterious past that she hesitates to share with Finn—even by the end of the novel, Finn knows little more about Vero than she does in the novel’s beginning. Part of the mystery surrounding Vero includes whether her last name is actually Ruiz, as she has told Finn, or Ramirez, as it appears on several documents. Vero hides her family and relationships from Finn and tells several lies to cover up the escalating problems that she has created for herself. She gradually reveals that she is seriously in debt, partially due to gambling, and that she has taken money from Finn’s bank accounts in a failed effort to win enough money to pay her debts. Vero’s shame over her actions implies that her motives are fear and desperation, not any ill intentions toward Finn or a lack of understanding of how wrong her actions are.
Vero mainly functions as a sidekick character, assisting Finn during her investigations. She also adds an element of edgy comedy to the novel, voicing sardonic comments that, though they might reflect Finn’s thoughts, might be less palatable coming from the protagonist. For example, it is funny when Vero repeatedly suggests that she and Finn solve their money woes by simply accepting the contract on Steven, an idea that, if voiced by Finn, would be more offensive than amusing.
Vero’s fierce loyalty to Finn and her uncompromising attitude toward Steven are also features of her character. Vero’s constant battling with Steven is a key part of the novel’s comedy. She is not one to simply accept his condescension and belittlement. When he orders her to mop up the water on Finn’s floor in Chapter 18, for example, she takes swift revenge by dropping a handful of Cheerios on Steven’s crotch, knowing that toddler Zach will jump on the cereal.
Vero is also an important part of the novel’s arguments about women’s networks of support. She is willing to go to great lengths to help Finn—even committing serious crimes like assaulting Steven and transporting Carl’s remains in the trunk of her car. On a more prosaic level, she supports Finn by keeping Finn organized and taking excellent care of Delia and Zach. Finn says that Vero has “a way of getting things to fit—of quietly smoothing down edges to make [their] prickly, disorganized life work” (86). Vero is Finn’s partner, and by the end of the novel, she has also become part of the family.
Steven Donovan
Steven is Finn’s ex-husband. He owns a successful sod farm, and his relative financial stability is one of the advantages he has over Finn at the beginning of the novel. Steven is used to having power and uses both his charm and his privilege to manipulate others. He is a liar and a cheat who treats women largely as disposable objects, but he has a more enduring emotional tie to Finn, considering her a source of emotional security even after their divorce.
Steven repeatedly attempts to sabotage Finn’s sense of self-worth to keep her from distancing herself from him. Even when he does things for her that seem selfless, his real motive is often self-interest, as when he comes over to fix the leak in the kitchen and uses it as an opportunity to imply that Finn is not capable of running her life without his help. He condescends to both Finn and Vero and tries to isolate Finn by casting doubt on Vero’s competence and character. Steven is an antagonist to Finn and Vero, although he does not see himself in this light. He is not the novel’s main antagonist—this role is reserved for the unknown person behind the “EasyClean” handle—but he does create serious problems for Finn by threatening her with legal action over the children, withholding assets from her, demeaning her, and refusing to believe that he is in any danger when someone is clearly trying to kill him.
Steven does have positive qualities. He loves his children, illustrated by the fact that the first thing he does after getting his own place is ask to have the kids over. He takes them Christmas-tree shopping, offers to take them to breakfast, and is interested in their safety and happiness. The contract on Steven’s life that creates the novel’s central conflict is eventually the impetus for further positive developments in Steven’s behavior and attitude. Once he realizes that Finn has genuinely been trying to protect him all along, and he sees the lengths to which she is willing to go to save him, he apologizes to her. He promises to make things right with Finn, financially and in their custody arrangements, and—at least for the moment—Finn believes him.
Susan McDonnell
Susan is Finn’s mother. In many ways, she is a stereotype common to cozy mysteries: the nosy mother whose traditional values and unsolicited advice interfere with the protagonist’s desire for independence and whose position as a conventional wife and mother simultaneously clashes with and enables the protagonist’s more modern lifestyle.
Susan repeatedly questions Finn about her love life and her finances, expressing concern about Finn trying to make it through life without a man at her side. However, she is furious with Steven for promising Finn the security of love and marriage and then betraying her with repeated cheating and emotional manipulation that culminated in their divorce. She gives Finn unwelcome advice about choosing Nick over Julian, favoring Nick’s greater stability and emotional availability. Unlike Finn, Susan feels so strongly about people needing romantic partners that she tells Finn to settle for taking the good with the bad instead of looking for the perfect partner. Susan’s perspective contrasts with Finn’s own as she comments about perhaps not choosing either Nick or Julian because she wants to be her own hero for a while.
Susan’s conventionality may clash with Finn’s more independent outlook, but, ironically, Susan’s availability to provide childcare makes Finn’s investigations possible. In addition, her constant cooking for and fussing over Finn provide the emotional foundation that Finn’s independence rests on. This aspect of Susan’s characterization supports the novel’s theme of Women’s Networks of Support. The comic twist at the end of the novel also relies on this characterization of Susan for its effect. If she did not appear to be “harmless”—like an ordinary and traditional wife and mother—the revelation that she is “FedUp” would not be as effective and amusing. Rather than providing support for thematic arguments about The Irony and Absurdity of Life, Susan’s motives would be suspect and undercut her position as a key part of Finn’s safety net.
Related Titles
By Elle Cosimano
