A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache)

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CC de Poitiers is fairly new in town, and definitely not a friend to any – not even those who had tried to make an effort to welcome this hateful, self-centered woman. What woke Saul Petrov at two in the morning, and whispered in his ears in the voice that had warned him as a child that lions lived under his bed, was the certainty that people now found him boring. Inspector Gamache investigates after CC de Poitiers, a sadistic socialite, is fatally electrocuted at a Christmas curling competition in the small Québécois town of Three Pines. The method was complicated, and how the inspector begins to pull the threads that become real clues is masterful.

As Gamache and the others notice the raw distaste that others had for CC, they cannot help but wonder why much of CC’s life cannot be substantiated. Gamache is a prodigiously complicated and engaging hero, destined to become one of the classic detectives. Enter Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, a plump middle-aged detective from the Sûreté du Quebec, who initially finds it difficult to work out how CC was murdered when she was surrounded by fellow villagers. I am enjoying the early stages of my Louise Penny binge, having found something that is not only unique, but captivating in its descriptive power.

There are portions of this book that are so beautifully written they stick with the reader for months. Disgusted, Clara hastens inside to the book launch for her neighbor, Ruth Zardo, the bitter but brilliant old poet whose friends from Three Pines turn up to support her.

The tips of the branches seemed to melt or become fuzzy as though even in its confidence and yearning there was a tiny doubt. While Inspector Gamache took his sweet time making an appearance, I was happily entertained with an abundance of snarky humor. What are the clues to the murders in A Fatal Grace, and how does Louise Penny hide them in plain sight? With his trademark compassion and courage, Gamache digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life to find the dangerous secrets long buried there. This is the one with a shocking curling match, a stinky dedication, and a weird ball retrieved from a dumpster.

A few days later it is Christmas Eve in Three Pines, with shortbread stars (Louise’s books always make me hungry) and carolers and a midnight service at St.

Now that she reminds me—and how remarkable for her to remember—I know that she and Michael insisted on taking me to lunch on that Saturday, and made more of a fuss about my birthday than they did about her chances of winning the Agatha. The Three Pines characters, now seen through Gamache's eyes and not forced to make it on their own, regained their gloss. Then a new team member arrives unexpectedly: Agent Yvette Nichol—”the rancid, wretched, petty little woman who’d almost ruined their last case”—apparently sent by the Superintendent of the Sûreté. At the same time, he is assisting in another totally unrelated murder, that of a street person who is killed in Montreal.This is a fine mystery in the classic Agatha Christie style, and it is sure to leave mainstream fans wanting more. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. What kind of world is this, when the expectation is that everyone is a self-entitled jerk, and doing anything else makes you a saint?