Lisa Power a thriller writer; her most successful book, Thief River Falls, is named after her hometown in northwestern Minnesota. She is thirty-nine and is described as being “bony and not too tall” with “shoulder-length brown hair that usually had a mind of its own, like an unruly nest” (7) and “big, wide, impenetrable brown eyes” (7). As a child, Lisa was “an introvert who noticed everything around her, like a silent spy” (23). Lisa is stubborn and has trouble forgiving people who have wronged her.

Lisa grew up in the town of Thief River Falls with her twin brother, Noah, their three younger brothers, and her parents. Lisa was also engaged to her high school boyfriend, Danny, but Danny died working as a firefighter in California. About two years before the novel begins, Lisa’s mother was killed in a car accident. This led to “the chain of events that would pick apart Lisa’s whole world, like loose threads unraveling” (31). Shortly after her mother’s death, Lisa’s father committed suicide, one of her brothers died in his sleep, and her other two younger brothers died in a flood. Lisa’s twin, Noah, left town abruptly. It is also revealed, at the end of the novel, that Lisa and Danny had a son together, Harlan.