Page "The Arm of the Starfish" Paragraph 7

Canon Tallis is a bald clergyman with no eyebrows, said to have lost his hair due to withstanding torture in Korea.

Brusque and incisive, and not at all pious by L ' Engle's definition, he defies the conventional image of a priest, and seems more than a little sinister to Adam at first.

An Episcopal Canon, he is surprisingly adept ( but not perfect ) at navigating the dangerous waters of international intrigue.

Canon Tallis reappears in the Austin family novel The Young Unicorns, where he is attached to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the same cathedral where Madeleine L ' Engle was writer in residence for many years.

He also appears in the second O ' Keefe family novel, Dragons in the Waters.

Tallis is nicknamed " Tom " or " Father Tom " because of the historical composer Thomas Tallis, who wrote the Tallis Canon.