CHANG SANDOVAL MYSTERIES - MAIN CHARACTERS

The off-key building inspector and

hero of the series.  

Entrusted the safety and integrity of the built environment along San Francisco's waterfront, Chang'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;” and for the people to call him their 'watchdog'

Chang's venerable right hand and authentic best friend.

'Old school' Building 'Investigator',

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

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

To be clear, it is Carmen who pushes Chang 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

Sarah Dunne runs Otis Street, Chang's professional outpost located on the the fifth floor remote corner of the DBI.

She is the deep thinker behind Chang's  often undecipherable process.

Ava Rose Sandoval

Only offspring of Carmen and Chang.

Leading cetologist with the North Coast Marine Lab, this young marine biologist exhibits the passions of her father and the adventurous spirit of her mother.

Along with his wife, Mima, Rocco is the extent of Chang's extended family.

As Chang's father's best friend, retired longshoreman turned herring fisherman, Rocco gives Chang deep roots to the City's Waterfront.

 Losing both parents at an early age, Chang, in effect, was raised by the City; he loves her like a mother.

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

It is a place where sinking towers, crumbling seawalls, cracks in steel girders and fissures in the City’s own government come into perspective. 

Born above a Basque restaurant to Cuban and Chinese immigrants in North Beach , Chang grew up knowing every alley and staircase intersecting Chinatown and Little Italy.

Sounds and smells of these spirited neighborhoods cry out in his dreams as they resist the silence of gentrification.

'Cate' or 'Gran'

Wife of Big J.D., mother to Jack, grandmother to Nate, this ninety-two year old is the matriarch of the Dillon Ranch and the grande dame of the North Coast

'Nate'

Nathanial Dillion, heir to the land rich/cash poor Dillon Ranch and boyfriend of Chang and Carmen's daughter, Ava Rose Sandoval.

Nate is an emerging driftwood sculpture artist

'Jed'

Mayor of the coastal town of Fort Bragg.  He is also T. Ray and Daisy's closest neighbor in the redwood forest, just inches inside city limits

Dustin Connor Fitzpatrick 

'Fitz'

Charismatic owner of the Lost Inn + Pub in the old company town of Fort Bragg