A highly skilled and anonymous professional assassin, known for his ability to assume multiple identities, who is hired to carry out a high-profile assassination plot.

An aristocratic figure in the French security services, whose prominent position is more a result of his social status than his competence, and whose actions inadvertently affect the investigation.

The real-life French leader depicted in the novel as a symbol of French national identity, whose public appearances become central to the assassin's plot.