Trope page for characters introduced in Jason Matthews's novel Palace of Treason.
For characters introduced in the prequel Red Sparrow, click here.
Beware of possible spoilers!
Parvis Jamshidi
Jamshidi is an Iranian nuclear scientist, the head of Iran's nuclear-enrichment program. When Dominika meets him in Paris, he's in the middle of setting up a deal for the Russians to provide additional equipment to help in said program. Dominika, as second-in-command of Line KR (SVR counterintelligence), has been tasked to find out every last detail of the program from him.
- Blackmail: Dominika turns him by using a Sparrow under her employ as leverage; threatening to release photos of his sexual proclivities to the imams.
- Character Death: After Zyuganov tips off Iranian intelligence to spite Dominika, he is killed in Vienna.
- Insufferable Genius: Has some shades of this when Nate, posing as a Moscow nuclear analyst, interviews him.
Udranka
Udranka is a Sparrow, originally a Serbian from Belgrade who moved to Moscow and later got recruited and trained as a Sparrow. For Dominika's operation on Jamshidi, she employs Udranka as a means to keep him in line.
- Beneath the Mask: On the surface, she's described to be ruthless as a Sparrow. When she and Dominika are alone, however, she admits to being so jaded and worn out that not even alcohol could numb her anymore, and she cries in Dominika's arms.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Raped with a wine bottle, whipped with a straightened clothes hanger, and finally strangled with the ropes of her own robe.
- Honey Trap: Employed by Dominika to ensnare Jamshidi.
- The Lancer: For Dominika's counterintelligence operation.
- Only One Name: For whatever reason, her surname is never mentioned.
- Posthumous Character: After Dominika walks into her apartment and finds her body, she imagines her presence whenever she's thinking to herself, along with the other women who die around her.
- Sensual Slavs: A Serbian seductress.
Yevgeny Pletnev
Yevgeny is Alexei Zyuganov's deputy in the SVR. When Dominika starts suspecting that Zyuganov might be conspiring against her, she decides to seduce Yevgeny in order to stay one step ahead of him.
- Character Death: Zyuganov beats him to death after learning that he's been telling everything he knows to Dominika.
- The Dragon: To Zyuganov, though he hardly does anything beyond act sycophantic to him.
- Sex–Face Turn: Dominika employs her Sparrow training to seduce him and make sure she knows everything his boss knows.
Mikhail Nikolaevich Solovyov
Solovyov is a GRU general who walked into Athens Station to start spying for the Americans. He is given the internal codename LYRIC, though in order for Nate to appease the general's ego, he gets a fake codename BOGATYR, after a Russian mythological figure.
- Four-Star Badass: A GRU general.
- The Load: Dominika risks herself to exfiltrate him out of Russia simply because she couldn't stand to lose another comrade again after Korchnoi and Udranka.
- The Mole: A voluntary one for the Americans.
- Small Name, Big Ego: The Americans regard him only as an intelligence asset, but he still insists on acting like a general among them even though it has no bearing to them at all.
Sebastian Claude Angevine
Seb Angevine is a deputy director for the National Clandestine Service. After being slighted for a promotion, he spitefully decides to get his revenge on his colleagues by passing sensitive information to the Russians.
- French Jerk: To put it mildly.
- He Knows Too Much: He manages to find Dominika's real name and figure out that she's the mole for the Americans, making it more urgent for Nate and his colleagues to find Angevine and stop him from blowing her cover to the Russians.
- Manipulative Bastard: His backstory says he got it from his equally insensitive father. In the course of his spying, he uses a stripper to contact the Russians, then later to secure his escape after the CIA catches his trail.
- Off with His Head!: In the end of the novel, he is decapitated by a river barge propeller after trading blows with Nate.
- Only in It for the Money: One of his main reasons for choosing the Russians to give intelligence secrets to.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Still seething from being passed on for promotion, he starts to spy for the Russians, proudly giving himself the codename TRITON. Unknown to him, however, triton is Russian for "newt," much to the amusement of his handlers.
Yulia Zarubina
Zarubina is the SVR rezident (the SVR equivalent of a CIA Chief of Station) assigned to Washington DC. When a high-ranking American official starts handing intelligence over to the Russians, she takes over the case and later becomes TRITON's handler personally.
- Character Death: She dies of a heart attack in the middle of trying to get away from Nate chasing her.
- Cool Old Lady: Despite being over 50, even the Americans respect her skills as an intelligence officer. The Russians believe her to be next in line to be the head of the SVR.
- In-Series Nickname: Shveja, Russian for "seamstress," alluding to her patience and skill in manipulating and ensnaring people to do her bidding.
Moscow Chief of Station Vernon Throckmorton
Vern Throckmorton is the Moscow Chief of Station, having replaced Gondorf, the one who got Nate reassigned to Helsinki back in Red Sparrow. Simon Benford constantly expresses his disdain for Vern's incompetence, and, much more dangerously, his obliviousness to it.
- Clueless Boss: Partly due to his laziness, and partly because Hannah was ordered to report directly to Benford.
- The Millstone: His preemptive arrival at what was supposed to be the secret meeting site with Dominika winds up getting Hannah killed needlessly.
Hannah Emmeline Archer
Hannah is a CIA case officer trained by Benford to be his "penetration" of Moscow Station to ensure that the DIVA (Dominika's CIA codename) case is being handled according to his standards. Nate also gets involved in her training, and they enter into a physical relationship briefly before her mission begins in Russia. Her task is to plant SRAC (short-range agent communications) ground sensors throughout Moscow for Dominika to use to communicate with the CIA, as well as to handle DIVA directly if necessary, all while going over her boss Vern Throckmorton at Benford's insistence.
- Daddy's Girl: She still contacts her parents while in Moscow, and her father is the last person she remembers as she dies in the course of her duties.
- Deadpan Snarker: A stark contrast to the more professional intelligence officers in the novels.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: When she snarks at Benford one too many times, he resorts to using this on her. She notes that he did it exactly like her father used to.
- Heroic Sacrifice: To keep Dominika away from the exposed meeting site, she draws the FSB agents away and winds up getting hit by one of their vehicles.
- Hot-Blooded: Benford notes her innate intensity, making it look like she's vibrating just sitting in an office. One of her outlets is snark, much to her superiors' consternation. She learns to keep herself from doing it out loud as the novel progresses.
- Jumped at the Call: She accepts the Moscow assignment from Benford while he tries to give her time to think it over.
- Temporary Love Interest: For Nate while Dominika is busy manipulating Putin and surviving under Zyuganov.
Evdokia Buchina
Evdokia (nicknamed Eva) is an SVR officer whom Zyuganov takes an interest in when a colleague complains about her brutality and ruthlessness as an interrogator. Zyuganov decides to take her under his wing and employs her on several assassinations.
- The Brute: Basically the Distaff Counterpart of Matorin from the previous novel, without the elaborate backstory.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Like Matorin before her, she dies in the same manner that her target Dominika was supposed to be assassinated. In her case, she gets choked to death with an electrical cord, the same way she killed a Frenchwoman earlier in the novel.
- Sadist: When Zyuganov assigns her to kill Dominika, and details the method of execution, she laughs, according to the narration, "with the sound of a bag of cleavers bouncing down a flight of stairs."
- The Sociopath: Even among equally nefarious people, Dominika notes in retrospect after killing her that she appeared to have absolutely no aura at all, possibly implying that Eva truly was emotionless.
