Louise Penny did it again! While not my favorite Chief Inspector Gamache, it’s still a fantastic read. This is book 15 in the series I believe and each of them is an absolute treasure. Only fools underestimated (Gamache), but Brault knew the service was full of fools. Fools with power, fools with guns. The Arnot case had proved that beyond a doubt. And had almost destroyed the large, thoughtful man in front of him." pg 57, ebook The idea about the comparison with the Hadley house with Nichol is still developing in my head. As Julie said, Yvette has been the reflection of her father’s fears of failure and he fuels that. She is also an expression of the fear of being unattractive and the outsider. So many desire to belong. It is easy to show you belong if there is someone else to collectively exclude, lots of bullying works this way. Of course Nichol doesn’t help herself, something the Hadley house can’t do. Remarkably, Penny manages to top her outstanding debut. Gamache is a prodigiously complicated and engaging hero, destined to become one of the classic detectives. I started working with Louise in October 2006, after the editor who had bought her first three books left Minotaur for another company. At the time, only Still Life had been published. A Fatal Grace was in bound galleys, and The Cruelest Month was a completed manuscript in search of a title.

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny | Goodreads A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny | Goodreads

I started reading this book immediately after finishing Still Life, with high expectations. At first, I was disappointed. The initial chapters seemed to lose the edge established by the prior book, the returning characters from the village of Three Pines seemed far less interesting than before. I’m not going to discuss the plot, other than to say that the unpleasant woman who was murdered was mourned by nobody, and her impending doom is mentioned in the first sentence. There are a few scary moments, but this is not a thriller. It is a just a good story told in good company. I love Louise Penny and this book is no exception. The plot is always complex and the characters are beloved. When Armand Gamache receives a letter to go to an abandoned farmhouse, he learns that he is the executor of a will for someone he has never met.Her narrative pacing is fantastic! Once the setup is done, the story sprints to the finish. Her world building is immaculate. You are in Three Pines, you are shopping in downtown Montreal. You sip drinks by the fire with the characters. I also love the way Louise focuses on the power of words, from the literal handwriting on more than one wall, to the hidden meanings of names like Mother, Elle, and Crie (what kind of parents would name a child that?), to the ways that words can kill or heal. I also marvel that someone like me, who is at least as much of a skeptic as Jean-Guy Beauvoir, can find myself wondering about such mysteries as lemon meringue pie. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

A Fatal Grace: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel: 2

With his trademark compassion and courage, Gamache digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life to find the dangerous secrets long buried there. For a Quebec winter is not only staggeringly beautiful but deadly, and the people of Three Pines know better than to reveal too much of themselves. But other dangers are becoming clear to Gamache. As a bitter wind blows into the village, something even more chilling is coming for Gamache himself. Gamache: “I knew then I was in the company of people who loved not only books, but words. Spoken, written, the power of words.” CONCLUSIONMeanwhile, Gamache is astonished when Clara proudly shows him the Li Bien ornament Peter gave her for Christmas, which is exactly like the ball CC supposedly used as the basis for her garbled philosophy. The glass ball is painted with three pine trees, the word Noël, and a single capital letter, L. Was it the picture of the trees that prompted CC to buy the monstrous old Hadley house in Three Pines? Awkwardly, Peter is forced to confess that while he meant to buy Clara something for Christmas this year, he actually found the ball in the Williamsburg dump. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté and his wife, Reine-Marie, make their first appearance in the book on the day after Christmas, when they have a tradition of reviewing unsolved cases. “If I was murdered,” says Gamache, “I’d like to think the case wouldn’t just sit unsolved. Someone would make an extra effort.” (I love this man.) Reine-Marie notices that one of the cases is new: There was a bag lady who had hung out at the bus station for years—but was strangled outside of Ogilvy’s department store on the day Clara saw her there. Astoundingly, a copy of Ruth’s new book, signed “You stink, love Ruth,” was found with the body. Would Gamach and his team be able to find the answers to this strange and baffling murder? He’d not encountered anything quite like it before… Starred Review. A traditional and highly intelligent mystery …. sure to create great reader demand for more stories featuring civilized and articulate Chief Inspector Gamache…. Highly recommended." - Library Journal 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.