Main Characters

The off-key building inspector and

hero of the series 

Entrusted with the safety and integrity of the built environment along San Francisco's waterfront, Hugo's adventures have caused the press to describe him as “…a lone and passionate voice rising in the stink and rue of the City’s rush hour haze;” while the people just call him their 'watchdog'

Hugo's venerable right hand and authentic best friend

Thelonious Raymond Harrison, III, or as he is known to Hugo simply as 'Harrison', is an old school forensic building investigator.  While T. Ray struggles to remain true to his semi-retired life off the grid in the Mendocino forest with his spitfire activist wife Daisy, it only takes a phone call from the Chief, for T. Ray to snap into action

Hugo's ex-wife, Hugo's mistress, his S.O. - depending where you are in the series - is Carmen Knights-Day Sandoval, a prominent environmental attorney

To be clear, it is Carmen who ritually pushes Hugo off the nest to explore who the heck he is without the City hovering

Solving mysteries can be messy business but with Carmen to bat clean up, not so much

Sara Dunne runs Otis Street, Hugo's august outpost located on the the remote corner of the fifth floor of the notorious DBI

Sara is the eco-activist and the deep thinker behind Hugo's  often undecipherable process

Ava Rose Sandoval, the only 

offspring of Carmen and Hugo

Working in Pacific waters, this young marine biologist exhibits the passions of her father and the adventurous spirit of her mother. As a cetologist, Ava does more than study whales, she defends these vulnerable giants 

Italian immigrants Rocco and his wife Mima rescued Hugo from San Francisco streets after his father was killed on the docks

As Hugo's father's best friend, retired longshoreman turned herring fisherman Rocco gives his godson deep roots to the City's Waterfront while Mima gives Hugo the gift of compassion

San Francisco Journalist

T. Ray's friend Horton, illustrious  editor of The Weekly Journal, always keeps the spare room in his spacious flat on Jones Street empty for the forensic investigator

Enigmatic, elusive, evocative street artist; devoted friend to Hugo

As the spiritual leader of CREW (Couriers Racing the East Wind) - San Francisco's militant messenger service he founded with Hugo  - Sandino  lives a life in the shadows when he's not needed on the front lines with Hugo

T. Ray's spirited wife and environmental activist defending Mendocino's coast

Former back up singer for Lyle Lovett & His Large Band

French

Born above a Basque restaurant to Cuban and Spanish exiles in North Beach, Hugo grew up knowing every alley and staircase intersecting Chinatown and Little Italy with the waterfront

The distinct sounds and smells of these bedrock neighborhoods cry out in his dreams as they resist the silence of gentrification

Throughout Hugo's adventures, San Francisco is oasis, a battleground, and forever a home to its native son

Losing both parents at an early age, even with Mima and Rocco taking him off the streets, it was the City who raised Hugo; he loves her like a mother 

  Occupying the remote fifth floor NW corner of the caustic Department of Building Inspections, the anachronistic Otis Street is best accessed by the alley for which it is named

"Otis Street is that place where sinking towers, crumbling seawalls, cracks in steel girders, and intimate fissures in the City’s government come into harsh perspective." - Horton 

Marlena Sebastian Rincon, known in art circles and in Caribbean mythology as 'La Negra', is T. Ray's old love

  Owner of Blind Key, she lives on the island with her brother, her passions, and her paints

Israel Sebastian Rincon 

Izzy operates Fins & Feathers Expeditions, a fishing and nature charter boat out of Matanzas Pass

While his home is the boathouse on Blind Key, he keeps a backup trailer on Pine Island

Robin Marlowe, second generation owner of MARLOWE's Fish Company + Bar on the Matanzas Pass  

Married on/off to Marlena  

Cajun

Pedro is the utility man who keeps MARLOWE's and BLIND KEY in working order  

Aide-de-camp, trusted right-hand; indispensable

Francis Spencer Delany

The ex-Navy diver runs MPEI, Matanzas Pass Estuarine Institute, where she heads up their mission to restore Estero Bay by cleaning up the troubled marine environment - 

one dock at a time

Carlos, Etienne, and Angel, three popular musicians in Cuba with the goal to emigrate to the United States. Departing port of Varadero on a fishing boat bound for Miami, a storm hit and blew them off course

Capsized, the heritage of their music as well as their freedom are both tethered to Blind Key