CHARACTER PROFILE
MEET
PROFESSOR
JASMINDER ‘JAZZ’ GREWAL
PROFESSOR ❖ ARCHAEOLOGIST ❖ RELUCTANT ADVENTURE
A scholar of the past. A skeptic by nature.
A man who never expected to be living the adventure.
THE PROFESSOR
Professor Jasminder “Jazz” Grewal is a respected archaeologist at the University of Toronto and George Ryan’s closest friend. His expertise extends far beyond excavation sites and ancient artefacts. Jazz combines a deep knowledge of archaeology with an understanding of the beliefs, languages and traditions of different cultures, allowing him to recognize connections that others might overlook. He is equally comfortable examining a centuries-old inscription, interpreting the significance of a ritual object or questioning the assumptions surrounding an accepted version of history.
Jazz also possesses an unexpected talent for technology, first demonstrated in The Brandon House. His ability to work with computers, digital records and modern research tools makes him an invaluable partner when the investigation moves beyond conventional archaeology. Careful, analytical and initially more comfortable in a lecture hall than in the middle of danger, Jazz provides an essential counterbalance to George’s instinctive approach. What begins as helping an old friend gradually draws him into the field, where his intelligence, loyalty and quiet courage repeatedly prove just as important as his academic credentials.
He teaches the past, but never stops questioning it. For Jazz, archaeology is not simply the study of what has already been discovered, but the careful examination of everything history may have overlooked, misunderstood or deliberately concealed. His lectures challenge students to look beyond accepted explanations, compare evidence across cultures and remain open to the possibility that the past still has secrets left to reveal.
MORE THAN GEORGE’S BEST FRIEND
George and Jazz’s friendship began long before ancient manuscripts and hidden chambers entered their lives. They grew up as neighbours on Vancouver Island, with the Ryan and Grewal families living beside one another for roughly three decades. Their parents share the comfortable familiarity of extended family, and George’s mother still remembers Jazz as the wild boy he was before becoming a respected professor. School days, music, surfing and the beaches around Tofino form part of their shared history. That childhood connection explains the easy humour between them, but also the level of trust that allows them to speak honestly when everyone else might hesitate.
As adults, they followed very different paths. George built a successful career in technology, while Jazz became a professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto. Those paths reconnect in The Brandon House when George discovers the crypt beneath his property in Ireland. Jazz is the person George turns to because he needs more than an academic opinion. He needs someone who knows him well enough to take an extraordinary claim seriously while still challenging his assumptions. Jazz brings archaeological discipline, technological ability and a broad understanding of different cultures; George contributes instinct, determination and an ability to recognize when the accepted explanation does not account for all the evidence. Their investigation eventually carries them from Ireland to Peru and Houston, transforming an old friendship into an unexpected working partnership.
Through The Atlantis Enigma and The Donegal Cipher, Jazz becomes far more than George’s academic adviser or reluctant sidekick. He is the person who grounds George when curiosity threatens to carry him too quickly forward, but he is also willing to follow when the evidence justifies the risk. George trusts Jazz with discoveries that could alter accepted history, while Jazz trusts George’s instincts enough to look beyond conventional explanations. By the time they return to Vancouver Island in The Tofino Deception, they are seasoned partners as well as lifelong friends. Their return home brings the relationship full circle: two boys raised by neighbouring families, now confronting mysteries together on the same coastline where their friendship began.
JAZZ & IRENE
Jazz and Irene’s relationship begins quietly in the background of The Brandon House. They had already known one another for several years as colleagues at the University of Toronto, where Jazz teaches archaeology and Irene is a professor of linguistics. It is the discovery in Peru, however, that changes their relationship. When Jazz and George encounter the isolated tribe and its mysterious language, Irene becomes involved in the effort to understand and decipher it. Working together on that research reveals how naturally their abilities complement one another. Jazz approaches the mystery through archaeology, technology and material evidence, while Irene brings expertise in language, cultural transmission and the ways meaning can survive across generations. Their professional respect gradually develops into something more personal.
By the opening of The Atlantis Enigma, Jazz and Irene are a new couple. Irene joins him in Lahinch for the archaeological conference, where George and Áine finally meet her in person. Their airport reunion shows that they have already become close, while their relaxed conversation and shared enthusiasm for their research make the relationship feel natural rather than forced. Irene also immediately fits into the group. She connects easily with Áine, understands George and Jazz’s long friendship and refuses to remain on the sidelines when the investigation begins. Throughout the novel, she and Jazz work as intellectual equals, examining the artefact, challenging one another’s interpretations and following the mystery from Lahinch to the Aran Islands. Their first major adventure together effectively tests the new relationship, and they emerge from it as both a couple and a capable investigative partnership.
In The Donegal Cipher, the relationship has become settled and familiar. Jazz and Irene travel together, share rooms and operate instinctively as a team during the investigation. They handle drone surveys, examine inscriptions, decode historical material and repeatedly protect the others when the danger increases. Their affection is shown less through grand romantic moments and more through teasing, shared routines and the ease with which they anticipate one another’s thinking. Irene is no longer introduced simply as Jazz’s girlfriend. She has become a core member of the group whose judgement carries equal weight. Jazz, in turn, has grown beyond the independent professor George once called whenever he needed help. His relationship with Irene gives him a genuine partner who understands both his academic world and the unpredictable life into which George’s discoveries keep drawing him.
By The Tofino Deception, Jazz and Irene are fully established as a couple. They arrive on Vancouver Island together, stay near Jazz’s family and are welcomed into the long-standing connection between the Grewal and Ryan households. George’s mother even remarks that she never expected to see the once-wild Jazz settle down. The two behave with the comfortable familiarity of people who have built a life together, laughing on their walks, sharing work and moving naturally between family gatherings and archaeological investigation. Irene also has her own relationships within the wider group, particularly with Áine, and her contribution to the mystery is independent of Jazz. Their relationship has therefore grown from professional collaboration into a mature partnership founded on curiosity, mutual respect and shared experience. They are not simply romantically involved. They have become each other’s closest intellectual and field partner.
THE SCHOLAR BECOMES
PART OF THE STORY
Jazz didn’t set out to find adventure.
But some stories find you.
Step into the mysteries with him.