Inspector Gamache is just a bit too perfect and life in the little snow-globe village of Three Pines is just a bit too saccharine for my taste.

Chapters 1-21: The first lines of A Fatal Grace foretell the death of the nastiest woman in Three Pines: “Had CC de Poitiers known she was going to be murdered she might have bought her husband, Richard, a Christmas gift…. All of this makes her the perfect Christie-style murder victim -- the reader is glad when she's dead, but justice must still be done, so there's the pleasure of the investigation without the grief of a sympathetic character dying, plus suspects are thick on the ground because everyone disliked her. I don't mean that to sound as dismissive as it probably does, and again, I understand that there are large numbers of readers who would love to live in Three Pines, but I'd probably go stark raving mad in less than a week.And why would Gamache have suspected the Three Graces murdering CC in revenge for Christmas Eve humiliation of Crie without wondering how they could have come up with the plan and gotten everything in place in less than 24 hours over Christmas? While not known personally to Gamache or his wife, her presence in Montreal’s downtown core could not be missed. CC humiliates Crie about her weight and her clothes, but the narrative does the same, lingering over scenes of Crie's suffering and commenting constantly on her obesity.

The dear old thing had hidden depths, courtesy of an author whose deceptively simple style masks the complex patterns of a well-devised plot.

Gamache is furious to see her, and knows that his enemies at Headquarters are still working against him. They all feel like a big family and Gamache is received in with open arms among them due to his pleasant personality.