Characters good to bad:
Males:
The Boss. Willie Talos is the only character in this book who has tried to do good from the very beginning. Willie always wanted to do the right thing, use the right materials for a school house, use a dependable contractor to build a free hospital. He realized that if he was wholly good he would never be able to accomplish this so he dirtied his hands up and then did good deeds that outweighed the bad.

The Judge. Judge Irwin was painted as a strong minor character, you later learn his true importance in the novel and how he was an incredibly important figure in Jack's life. But even before you learn of the judges identity you learn how much he meant to Jack, and how prominent he was in his life. Jack describes him as a sort of uncle or a second father, a better one than the others that he had, better even than the Scholarly Attorney.

Cass Mastern. Cass Mastern is a good character, in a completely different way than the first but similar to the Judge. Cass Mastern appeals to Jack as had having a sad life, so Jack takes a kind of pitiful view on him. Jack views him as a good character because of the things that he tried to do after Cass remedied his ways. Cass is similar to Willie in that he dirtied his hands, but he was never trying to the right thing straight from the start like Willie was.

George. George was a lot like Cass in the way that he remedied his ways after, not exactly being sinful in George's case, leading a life of sin. George was shocked into his ways and became a big baby, unable to help himself, barely able to stand. He requires the help of one in a very similar situation, bringing us to the next person.

The Scholarly Attorney. The Scholarly Attorney is one of the characters who is a whole lot of good on the top but when you take a deeper look there's nothing. The Scholarly Attorney abandoned his wife and "child" because he learned the truth and couldn't handle it, was struck dumb. He became obsessed with this and had to do "the right thing" so he became a "saint" to other people.

Adam Stanton. Adam is viewed highly by Jack, but for some reason wouldn't accept the job offer unless he was blackmailed. Jack originally thought Adam liked to help people and never changed his mind on that but as the book goes on the reader may start to wonder, why is Adam such a prick to his sister?

Jack. Jack is at the bottom of the list only because of one reason. He has done nothing to ever help anyone else, has only done things for his own personal gain, or the gain of the Boss, which incidentally would help people but he doesn't do it for that reason. Jack is a complex character that, when confronted with the truth of what happened between the Boss and Anne, acts much the way the Scholarly Attorney did, at first, then he snaps out of it, almost like he realized what he was doing and didn't want to end the same way.



Women:

Lucy Talos. Lucy much like her husband has always tried to do good, there is never one specific example of how or what, but it's easy to tell that she never dirtied her hands, and never once tried to do something bad. Unlike her husband she never got in the mud to fix things but helped to support him do it, never left him, and was essentially his rock, even though he cheated on her.

Sadie. Sadie Burke is a great character who is always in the background snooping around and knows everything about the Boss somehow. She is great at what she does and what she does is gear the Boss up to go do what he wants, and he wants to help people.

Jacks mom. Jacks mom is a character who is stale and in the middle. She never does one thing that's really bad and never does one thing that's really good. There's not much on her, sure later you learn some things that she did, but they weren't really uber bad.

Annabelle. Annabelle was a pretty bad character, she started off not so bad then progressively worsened and worsened Cass Mastern with he, however when Cass flipped out of the badness and went to do good, she got worse, in fact she actually caused Cass's change to goodness because of her profound badness.

Anne Stanton. Anne Stanton, she was a very good character throughout and actually had one falling out that made Jack view her as bad, and if Jack views her as bad it's hard not to. Even though Jack saw her as being bad for only a small time, then forgave her and did some weird stuff, the amount of bad that she put off in her small little bad time was so enormous, so catastrophic, that Jack nearly turned into the Scholarly Attorney. Now what she did in all actuality was the same as what Annabelle Trice did, however you were unable to see the effects of what it did to Mr. Trice's emotions, sure he killed himself but how did he feel. Jack shows a heck of a lot of emotion when he learns of anne's cheating, in fact it's ne of the only times he does show emotion.