Our protagonist is eleven-year-old Alex Garfield. Alex has developed a loner personality and a lack of social graces due to a troubled upbringing. Alex has been living with her Grandfather, a retired police officer, for the last five years. Alex was orphaned after her mother’s passing during childbirth, and her father abandonment. Alex spends her days attending school, reading detective comics, and watching noir films over at her neighbor’s house. Alex has a schoolyard acquaintance named Toby which she has nick-named Tubs, though Toby considers them best of friends Alex does not. Alex’s isolation has allowed her to develop a great imagination, which she uses to act out detective plots publicly. At school this has labelled her the weird girl,
