CHARACTER
The Woman in the Windowby A.J. Finn

Ethan Russell

Ethan Russell

Quick Facts

  • Role: Teenage neighbor who becomes the novel’s hidden antagonist
  • First appearance: Chapter 8 (arrives with a lavender candle)
  • Family: Adoptive son of Alistair Russell and Jane Russell; biological son of Katie
  • Key relationship: Bonded to his agoraphobic neighbor Anna Fox, whom he targets and attempts to kill

Who They Are

Ethan Russell first appears as a shy, blue-eyed sixteen-year-old who seems to need warmth, guidance, and protection. Anna reads him as gentle and wounded; the novel invites us to do the same. But Ethan is the hinge on which the entire mystery turns: the “sweet” boy who is actually the predator, the neighbor who knocks politely before revealing he’s already inside. He is the clearest embodiment of the novel’s obsession with Perception vs. Reality: a mask so convincing that even a trained psychologist mistakes performance for truth.

Personality & Traits

Ethan’s persona is a double exposure—one image soft and sympathetic, the other cold and predatory. The novel teaches us to read his kindness as authentic, then forces us to re-scan every scene as calculated theater.

  • Soft-spoken facade with precise staging
    • Brings a lavender candle “from his mom” at their first meeting; speaks haltingly, cries about missing Boston and friends (Chapter 8). The gift and tears tailor-made to disarm Anna’s maternal instincts.
  • “Baby-faced” innocence as camouflage
    • Tall for his age yet boyish—“blue-eyed,” “sandy hair,” a faint eyebrow scar. Anna notes he looks younger than sixteen, a look that primes others to underestimate him.
  • Manipulative strategist
    • Orchestrates a sophisticated web of lies: invents an abusive-father narrative; poses online as “GrannyLizzie” to surveil Anna and mine her vulnerabilities; changes her phone passcode to control communication (Chapter 95).
  • Psychopathic detachment
    • Acknowledges what he is; exhibits no remorse for harming others. He boasts of killing Katie because he was “bored with her” and because she “pissed [him] off” (Chapter 95).
  • Cunning reader of people
    • Exploits Anna’s grief, isolation, and professional identity as a child psychologist—mirroring her therapeutic language back to her to appear safe and salvageable.
  • Capacity for cruelty and violence
    • Injures Punch, Anna’s cat, to intimidate and test boundaries; escalates from calculated deceit to an attempted murder staged as suicide during the rooftop chase.

Character Journey

Ethan’s arc is not transformation but revelation. He enters as Anna’s fragile, possibly endangered neighbor—an echo of the wounded boys she once treated. Through small confidences and curated vulnerability, he becomes the witness who seems to hold the key to the murder Anna believes she saw. When the case frays, he offers a tearful “solution,” recasting events with a confession that exonerates him and snares Anna in silence. The mask finally drops in her bedroom: he is Katie’s killer, GrannyLizzie, the saboteur of her phone and reality. The last act on the storm-lashed roof converts Anna’s misreading into survival; her belated clarity shatters both the skylight and the illusion. Ethan’s “arc” thus forces a retroactive re-interpretation of every earlier scene, proving how dangerous a charming narrative can be when it fits what we want to see.

Key Relationships

  • Anna Fox
    With Anna, Ethan shapes himself into the perfect patient-son hybrid: timid, grateful, desperate for connection. He preys on her professional pride and loneliness, allowing her to feel needed as he stages disclosures and tears on cue. The endgame—isolating her, discrediting her, and finally attempting to kill her—exposes his intimacy as predation.

  • Alistair and Jane Russell
    Ethan casts his adoptive parents as abuser and enabler to secure Anna’s sympathy and justify secret visits. In reality, they are wary guardians trying to contain him and protect others. Alistair’s apparent control is re-read as vigilance; Jane’s supposed helplessness as fear.

  • Katie
    After Katie tracks him down, Ethan counterfeits a reunion to study and dominate her. He murders her with a letter opener when she refuses the role he scripts for her—proof that, for Ethan, people exist to be managed or removed.

Defining Moments

Ethan’s most important scenes braid performance with control, each moment tightening the trap around Anna—and the reader.

  • First visit with the candle (Chapter 8)
    Why it matters: Establishes the “gentle boy” persona and targets Anna’s need to nurture; the prop, the tears, and the politeness become the baseline illusion.

  • The false confession (Chapter 93)
    Why it matters: His boldest lie reframes the murder as a protective act by Jane, “solving” the mystery to neutralize Anna’s suspicion and close the case emotionally.

  • Bedroom unmasking—“I am Lizzie” (Chapter 95)
    Why it matters: Collapses every boundary (home, phone, mind). Admitting he’s GrannyLizzie, he reveals comprehensive surveillance and domination of Anna’s world.

  • Producing the weapon used on Katie (Chapter 95)
    Why it matters: Converts abstraction into physical threat; his pride in the method underscores pleasure in control and violence.

  • Rooftop pursuit and fall (Chapters 96–98)
    Why it matters: The final inversion of his staged suicide plot. Anna’s survival depends on abandoning the story she wanted to believe and confronting the person he is.

Essential Quotes

“I’m Ethan.” (Chapter 8)
His simplest introduction works like a thesis statement for his performance: unthreatening, open, first-name-only intimacy. The scene invites trust—seed money for the con he will compound with each visit.

“I miss my friends.” (Chapter 8)
This plaintive line calibrates Anna’s empathy and guilt; it reframes him as a displaced child rather than an autonomous agent. Later, it reads as a crafted cue designed to make Anna supply the comfort—and narrative—he needs her to believe.

“She’s my mother… My real mother. Biological.” (Chapter 93)
Introduced at the apex of his false confession, this claim positions Ethan as the endangered son at the center of a tragic family web. The language (“real,” “biological”) weaponizes authenticity to authenticate a lie.

“No, Anna: I am Lizzie.” (Chapter 95)
The four-word pivot detonates the entire story. By yoking intimacy (“Anna”) to revelation (“I am Lizzie”), Ethan exposes the scope of his manipulation—online, emotional, and domestic.

“This is what I used on Katie… Wouldn’t stop. Kind of like you.” (Chapter 95)
Shifting from past to present threat, he literalizes his power with the weapon and collapses difference between victims. The comparison makes clear that for Ethan, people are problems to be ended when they resist his script.