Trace Memory (novel)

Trace Memory was the fifth release in the BBC Torchwood Novels series.

Publisher's summary
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1953. A mysterious crate is brought into the docks on a Scandinavian cargo ship. Its destination: the Torchwood Institute. As the crate is offloaded by a group of local dockers, it explodes, killing all but one of them, a young Butetown lad called Michael Bellini.

Fifty-five years later, a radioactive source somewhere inside the Hub leads Torchwood to discover the same Michael Bellini, still young and dressed in his 1950s clothes, cowering in the vaults. They soon realise that each has encountered Michael before — as a child in Osaka, as a junior doctor, as a young police constable, as a new recruit to Torchwood One. But it's Jack who remembers him best of all.

Michael's involuntary time-travelling has something to do with a radiation-charged relic held inside the crate. And the Men in Bowler Hats are coming to get it back.

Featuring Captain Jack Harkness as played by John Barrowman, with Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato and Ianto Jones as played by Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoki Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd, in the hit series created by Russell T Davies for BBC Television.

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Jack Harkness
 * Gwen Cooper
 * Owen Harper
 * Toshiko Sato
 * Ianto Jones
 * Michael Bellini
 * Maggie Jenkins
 * Toshiko Sato's father
 * Toshiko Sato's mother
 * Toshiko Sato's grandmother
 * Darren Lucas
 * Rhodri
 * Frank
 * Wilf
 * Hassan
 * Andy Davidson
 * Nurse Collins
 * Nurse Margaret Gait
 * Doctor Hutchins
 * Pete
 * Sergeant Rowlands
 * Goth girl
 * Lloyd
 * Kirsty
 * Doctor Bala
 * Darren Lucas
 * Lisa Hallett
 * Bev Stanley
 * Lucy
 * Charles Cromwell
 * Kenneth Valentine
 * Hugo Faulkner
 * Linda Wells
 * Josh Wells
 * Martin
 * Maria James
 * Robert James
 * Tatiana Rogozhin
 * Yevgeny
 * Pavlov
 * Mikhail
 * Janet

Worldbuilding

 * Jack steals a copy of the William Shakespeare play Cardenio.
 * Jack mentions Clarke's Law to Toshiko.
 * Rhys eats Marmite.
 * Ianto has been watching James Bond films. He has currently watched up to Goldfinger.
 * Torchwood One know that there is such thing as Father Christmas, and he does live in Lapland. Torchwood serve to deal with his existence.
 * Graham Evesham works for UNIT.
 * In 1953, Nelson-Stanley found a Vondraxian orb.
 * Lucy and Cromwell mention a Captain Turner as working for Torchwood Three.
 * The KVI use a Hamilton's Sugar warehouse as a base in Cardiff.

Continuity

 * Owen compares Michael to the passengers aboard the Sky Gypsy. (TV: Out of Time)
 * Eyewitness testimonies of parnormal activities and extraterriestrial visitors debunked by the Torchwood Institute include those relating to Albion Hospital in 1941, (TV: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances) Maiden's Point in 1943, (TV: The Curse of Fenric) The Torchwood Estate in 1879, (TV: Tooth and Claw) St Teilo's Hospital in 1918, (TV: To the Last Man) Cardiff in 1869, (TV: The Unquiet Dead) and the fairies of Roundstone Woods. (TV: Small Worlds)
 * The quantum transducer is mentioned. (TV: Ghost Machine)
 * Nelson-Stanley is mentioned. (TV: Eye of the Gorgon)
 * Jack and Michael hide out in Shangri-La hotel, formerly Shangri-La holiday camp. (TV: Delta and the Bannermen)
 * Ianto states that the air mattress Michael sleeps on is one of the few items not trashed from their camping trip. (TV: Countrycide)
 * Yvonne Hartman is mentioned in Ianto's flashback. (TV: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday)
 * Gwen remembers Jack talking about the Civil Service, who also wore bowler hats. (PROSE: Slow Decay)