Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses murder, death by suicide, rape (including rape of minors), child pornography, alcohol use disorder, and gun violence.

The dynamic protagonist of Those Empty Eyes is Alex Armstrong, formerly Alexandra Quinlan. Her life is in many ways defined by the tragedy she endured as a child. Her family’s murders (and the ensuing “empty eyes” identity foisted upon her) force her to change her life’s trajectory: She can no longer lead a public life and thus goes into hiding, first in the Appalachians and then in London. Likewise, the tragedy shapes her motivations: Even though she goes through the motions of having the typical life of a teen, moving from high school into university, she only feigns that life in favor of investigating her family’s massacre. Alex is consumed by the quest for the truth.

One of the only ways Alex can pursue this quest without being outed as “empty eyes” is through constant reinvention. Just two years after her family’s murders, she undergoes one of these reinventions. After failing to get information from the Swiss bank, she notes, “The old version of herself may have stewed and protested at this obstacle in her path.