Kill for Me, Kill for You

Ruth Gelman (also known as Wendy, Naomi, and Felicia) is one of the primary narrators of Kill for Me, Kill for You. She is characterized as an antihero. Although she begins the novel as an empathetic protagonist, Ruth’s trauma causes her hospitalization in a psychiatric center and eventually leads to her violent manipulation of Amanda. She is described as having “thick brown hair” and cheekbones that “stood out proudly on her face” (66, 45). Because of her pale skin, which “look[s] like it hadn’t felt the sun in a long time” (45), Amanda finds it “difficult to pinpoint an age” when they meet (45).

The novel begins with Ruth surviving a violent home invasion by the serial killer known as Mr. Blue Eyes, and she carries the trauma of that attack with her throughout the novel. Ruth’s mind repeatedly returns to the night of the attack, and she is haunted by visions of Mr. Blue Eyes: “[S]he couldn’t get that man’s face out of her head and he was there every night in her dreams” (67). At first, Ruth believes that her repeated visions of her attacker are her psyche’s way of protecting itself, as “she would never forget the face of her attacker, and never put herself in that danger again” (67). Ruth’s attempts to rationalize her grief suggest that she still has some control of her mental faculties: She acknowledges her repeated visions and nightmares while also seeking to explain them.

However, after spending seven years in a psychiatric facility, Ruth begins to think of her grief as “a large, obsidian stone, dark and alien, that she carrie[s] around inside” her body (237). This abstract image offers a stark contrast to Ruth’s earlier attempts to rationalize her grief as a means of self-defense. The obsidian stone also represents a change in Ruth’s response to her grief, as she realizes that “seeing someone else with her pain, and the knowledge that Ruth had in some way played a part in that, [makes] the sinister stone in Ruth’s chest shrink” (237). In the final act of the novel, it is revealed that Ruth’s grief led her to become a serial killer. As Mr. Blue Eyes comments when he confronts her, she kills “again, and again and again, not in search of me, but for the pleasure” (329). Ruth’s dramatic transformation reflects the novel’s thematic interest in The Lasting Effects of Traumatic Events.

Scott Gelman is the husband of Ruth Gelman and one of the novel’s secondary narrators. He is characterized by the sense of “comfort and security” that he gives Ruth (14), which contrasts with his inner anxiety and shame. Even before she experiences the home invasion, Ruth relies on Scott to provide the “safety and security” that she lacked in her childhood (12). When Scott proposed to Ruth, he promised that “he would make sure she was taken care of, that she was safe” (55). The repeated references to safety and security in these passages foreshadow the home invasion and Scott’s later efforts to protect Ruth by killing Mr. Blue Eyes.

Although he appears to be a “successful Manhattan lawyer, married, with a big house and a huge salary” (141), Scott carries a great deal of shame about the fact that he was “bullied in school pretty relentlessly” (54). This shame powers Scott’s behavior throughout the novel. He admits that he enjoyed his job in the district attorney’s office because sending people to prison made him feel “like [he] was finally fighting back” (55). He kills the man Ruth believes to be her attacker because his wife’s vulnerability makes him feel like “the boy, naked and bleeding on the floor of the shower after the jocks had kicked the shit out of him” (141). The repeated references to Scott’s bullying in these passages suggest that the shame and fear of being bullied remain an important influence in Scott’s adult life.

Detective Andrew Farrow is a New York City police officer who is responsible for investigating Ruth Gelman’s home invasion and the deaths of Jess White and Frank Quinn. He is one of the novel’s secondary narrators. He is described as “a tall, thin man” with “a deep voice” and “blond hair” (22, 34). Farrow walks with difficulty as a result of a “lower lumbar disc problem, which had been steadily getting worse [and] was now almost unmanageable” (175). Because he investigated Ruth’s 2007 home invasion and the murder of Amanda’s daughter, Farrow acts as a point of connection between the two plotlines.

Farrow is characterized by his determination to solve the crimes he’s assigned. His nickname within the precinct is St. Jude, after “the patron saint of hopeless cases” (177). Farrow is driven by the feeling that he “owe[s] the dead a debt” to solve their mysteries and “owe[s] something to those left behind” as well (299). The repeated use of the words “owe” and “debt” in this passage suggests that Farrow sees his job as transactional: Once brought on to a case, Farrow feels that it is his responsibility to close it. When Amanda first meets Farrow, “something in his eyes” gives her the sense that he is “haunted” (22). Later, Farrow admits that he hears the victims of the crimes he investigates “crying out to him in the night” (298). The references to the supernatural in these passages demonstrate the extent to which Farrow’s world is transformed by the violence of his cases—another form of trauma that the novel explores.

“Mr. Blue Eyes” is the nickname given to the serial killer who invades Ruth Gelman’s home and attempts to kill her in 2007. He is the primary antagonist of Kill for Me, Kill for You. In the second half of the novel, he uses the name Billy Cameron. Billy uses Amanda to find Ruth because he wants to kill Ruth and complete the crime he left unfinished 11 years prior.

Cavanagh defines Billy/Mr. Blue Eyes by the contrast between his two personas. The night of her attack, Ruth describes Mr. Blue Eyes as having “fierce blue eyes, a long narrow nose, and a square jaw” (14). His voice, which is “raspy and broken and utterly, utterly, terrifying” (16), stays with Ruth for years after the attack. When she encounters him again in 2018, Ruth immediately recognizes his “dead blue eyes” (327). These passages depict Mr. Blue Eyes as an aggressive, otherworldly horror and offer a sharp contrast to the novel’s depictions of his alias, Billy Cameron. Billy disguises his eye color with contacts, but his attitude also changes: Amanda describes him as “a sweet, generous man” with “kindness” and “sadness” in his eyes (264). Amanda trusts Billy implicitly even after she learns that he lied to her about his relationship with Ruth. The stark contrast between “Billy Cameron” and “Mr. Blue Eyes” serves to distract readers from the fact that they are the same person. It also demonstrates his skills as a manipulator, as he is able to dramatically change his personality in order to commit his murders. The static nature of Mr. Blue Eyes’s characterization over the course of the story contributes to the ways in which the novel grapples with The Rehabilitation of Violent Offenders.