Detective Gully

Quick Facts

Detective Gully is the junior partner leading the investigation into the disappearance of Avery Wooler. She arrives with calm authority, quickly distinguishing herself from her partner with her empathy and sharp observational skills.

• Role: Co-lead detective on Avery’s case; junior partner to Detective Bledsoe
• First appearance: At the Wooler home as the search begins
• Background: Prior experience with missing-child cases in Chicago
• Key relationships: Erin Wooler (rapport and trust), William Wooler (suspicion and scrutiny)

Who They Are

Gully is the investigation’s clear-eyed conscience—a calm, empathetic detective whose strength lies in what she notices and how she listens. She represents the principled pursuit of truth in a suburb clouded by Deceit and Lies, and her presence grounds the novel’s most volatile moments. The narrative often filters her through Erin’s perspective, inviting the reader to trust her instincts and her moral clarity.

Detective Gully, a Black woman maybe ten years younger than Bledsoe, with close-cropped hair and a smart trouser suit, is the one that Erin connects with. Perhaps because she is a woman. Perhaps because her eyes are more lively and her expression more sympathetic than her partner’s.

That first impression matters: it frames Gully as both competent and human, the investigator most likely to see Avery as a child in danger rather than a problem to be solved.

Personality & Traits

Even in a room full of noise, Gully hears what matters. Her defining qualities—perception, empathy, and method—consistently move the case forward while anchoring the narrative in moral seriousness.

• Perceptive and intuitive: She spots that Avery’s jean jacket hangs from a hook too high for a child, shifting the case from a runaway theory to a likely abduction. She also quietly clocks William’s strangeness, thinking, There’s something about him, something off.
• Empathetic: She forges trust with Erin, promises action, and feels “terribly sad for this lonely little girl” after reading Avery’s diary. Her sympathy extends even to Nora Blanchard, whose exposed affair leaves collateral damage.
• Thorough and open-minded: Refusing tunnel vision, she orders a school search, investigates the “boyfriend” rumor, and pursues the drone tip tied to Adam Winter, widening the field beyond the Wooler home.
• Experienced: Her Chicago background with missing children informs her steady demeanor—she’s systematic without being rigid, decisive without being blinkered.

Character Journey

Gully’s arc is less about personal transformation than professional ascendancy. Introduced as the junior partner, she quickly becomes the investigation’s keystone, guiding Bledsoe away from snap judgments and toward verifiable patterns. Her early suspicion of William proves justified, though not in the simplistic way her partner assumes. As leads fan out—from William to Ryan Blanchard to Derek Seton—Gully keeps returning to what can be seen, tested, and corroborated. That disciplined openness pays off when she’s in position to recover Avery at Marion Cooke's house. Through her, the book insists that careful seeing—rather than loud certainty—cuts through the suburb’s lies.

Key Relationships

• Detective Bledsoe: He’s blunt and quickly convinced; she’s measured and skeptical. Their friction becomes productive when Gully’s observations redirect his momentum, preventing the case from collapsing into a single-suspect narrative.
• Erin Wooler: Erin gravitates to Gully’s warmth and competence, a bond that yields better interviews and more honest disclosures. As the family comes under pressure, Gully’s empathy ensures the investigation remains humane without losing rigor.
• William Wooler: From the outset, Gully senses concealment. Her interviews and follow-ups expose his lies about timing and his temper with Avery, sharpening the novel’s portrait of Family Dysfunction and testing the difference between guilt, secrecy, and culpability.

Defining Moments

Gully’s most important scenes fuse small details with large consequences; each moment reframes the case and clarifies her method.

• The jean jacket discovery: Noticing the jacket on a hook Avery couldn’t reach reframes the disappearance as involving another person. It becomes the case’s anchor detail—and a quiet rebuke to assumptions linked to Appearance vs. Reality.
• Interviewing Michael Wooler: With a gentle, steady approach, she uncovers William’s history of slapping Avery, surfacing the family’s volatility and a plausible motive without sensationalism.
• Pursuing the “boyfriend” lead: Instead of dismissing playground gossip, she interviews Jenna, probes Michael, and tracks the thread to Derek Seton, expanding the investigation beyond the household and into Avery’s social world.
• Following the drone tip: Treating [Adam Winter]’s drone footage as potential evidence, she corroborates timelines and sightlines—an example of her habit of turning long-shot tips into actionable checks.
• Finding Avery: By being in motion and following evidence rather than hunches alone, she arrives at Marion Cooke’s home as Avery escapes—closing the mystery through presence, preparation, and luck seized.

Essential Quotes

“I’ll do everything in my power, I promise you that.” This promise crystallizes Gully’s blend of professional duty and personal care. It’s not grandstanding; it’s a binding ethic that earns trust from Erin and the reader, framing Gully as the novel’s moral center in a landscape of evasions.

He seems to be hiding something. She senses that his frequent trips to look out the window for Avery are a show put on for their benefit. The mother doesn’t do anything like that. She simply looks terrified. Rendered in close third person, this moment captures Gully’s read of performance versus genuine distress. Her ability to distinguish staged concern from real fear guides where she applies pressure—and where she offers comfort.

“Look at that,” Gully says, pointing with her chin. “A little girl’s jean jacket.” Bledsoe takes in a deep breath beside her. “Fuck,” he mutters. ... Bledsoe says, “Because someone else hung Avery’s jacket up on that upper hook; she wouldn’t have been able to reach it herself.” This is the investigation’s fulcrum. A quiet observation turns into a theory of the crime, and the exchange shows how Gully’s detail-work prompts even Bledsoe to recalibrate.

“I’m trying to keep an open mind. But that jacket.” Gully articulates the balance of method: intellectual openness anchored by hard facts. The line becomes a mantra for her approach—welcome any possibility, but never drift from the evidence.

Everyone here is lying, she thinks. This thought distills the book’s thesis and Gully’s role within it. She recognizes the atmosphere of deceit without succumbing to it, positioning herself as the reader’s guide through competing stories and strategic half-truths.