Willl Graham is a criminal profiler and hunter of serial killers, who has a unique ability he uses to identify and understand the killers he tracks. Will lives in a farm house in Wolf Trap, Virginia, where he shares his residence with his family of dogs (all of whom he adopted as strays). Originally teaching forensic classes for the FBI, he was brought back into the field by Jack Crawford and worked alongside Hannibal Lecter to track down serial killers.

Will Graham grew up poor and lonely. With his mother missing from an early age, Will was raised by his father, who made ends meet by working on ships until he died, and Will became an orphan. Constantly drifting from place to place, Will grew up without a sense of place. As he tells his therapist, Hannibal Lecter, "There’s something so foreign about family... like an ill-fitting suit. I never connected with the concept."