A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache)

Product Information

But her silence remained, eloquent, her face impassive. Anything CC didn't like didn't exist. That included her husband and her daughter. It included any unpleasantness, any criticism, any harsh words not her own, any emotions. CC lived, Saul knew, in her own world, where she was perfect, where she could hide her feelings and hide her failings. That would be more than enough to make me annoyed by this book, but its treatment of the 'good' characters is just as bad -- even worse, in a way, because the nastiness of it is so much more covert. As I said above, the 'good' characters don't treat Crie as a human being -- they talk about her but they don't take any action to try to make things better for her. The exception is Gamache, but even here Crie is just a prop. Gamache treats her with some basic human decency -- putting a coat around her when she's cold, encouraging her to eat despite her mother's death -- and the book treats this as behaviour that's so saintly it bewilders onlookers, who can't understand how anyone could bother to put a coat on a cold child's shoulders. It's bizarre, but very integral to how Penny writes her characters; there's always someone watching the good characters (such as Gamache and Clara) 'being good' and either adoring them or being confused by their goodness. Whether or not a character is good or bad is shown by whether they adore Gamache for his goodness, like Beauvoir, or dislike and distrust it, like Nichols. These people never act silently; there's always an audience, so there's always a pay-off -- when Clara does an act of, again, basic human kindness (in giving Elle/L some food) she ends up believing that God has personally come to earth to reassure her about her art. She's not just an ordinary person trying to do something kind, she's receiving a message from God -- and the reader is supposed to find this random belief charming, and CC's beliefs in Li Bien toxic, because Clara is a Good Person and CC is a Bad Person. Gamache's job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was to get the know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention. And the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual manner in a deceptively casual setting. Like the bistro." pg 142, ebook. And it's simply a treat to follow Gamache around and listen to his inner voice. He's sensitive and kind, smart and intuitive. He also likes good food and drink. It makes him so relatable. He's one of those characters that I'd like to meet for a drink sometime, if he were real. Or I'd want him in my book club.

What interests you most about the two murder victims, CC and the bag lady known only as Elle, and the way Gamache conducts his investigation? I enjoyed Dead Cold , but not quite as much as I did the first, Still Life. The crime in this one was a bit out there, somewhat unbelievable. Regardless, I did have fun arriving at the solution and there was enough here to keep me interested in continuing. 3.5 stars rounded down What's this?' He reached into the garbage and withdrew a portfolio. He recognized it immediately as an artist's dossier of work. It was beautifully and painstakingly bound and printed on archival Arche paper. He flipped it open and caught his breath. A series of works, luminous and light, seemed to glow off the fine paper. He felt a stirring in his chest. They showed a world both lovely and hurt. But mostly, it was a world where hope and comfort still existed. It was clearly the world the artist saw each day, the world the artist lived in. As he himself once lived in a world of light and hope. Those essential stories are woven into the broader series and mysteries of the week seamlessly, as the show also takes a deep dive into the French Canadian culture. Characters flip between French and English throughout, there are plenty of “tabernacs” thrown in for good measure, and the ongoing tension between French and English communities always simmers beneath the surface.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

I am not sure this is a particularly coherent review, but here's a try about my problems with the book: The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Penny, Louise. A Fatal Grace. Minotaur Books. May 15, 2007. Kindle. I wonder if Louise Penny's editors said, 'Give us another cozy murder, but different.' Well, she delivered.

He wondered how long before that world would explode. He hoped he'd be around to see it. But not too close. The second in the mystery series by Louise Penny set in the small Québécois town of Three Pines, featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force for Quebec: Gamache tells Lemieux, “All the mistakes I’ve made have been because I’ve assumed something and then acted as though it was fact.” Have you ever made important assumptions that turned out not to be true? And beside him an enormous child was wearing a sleeveless sundress of the brightest pink. Her underarms bulged and flopped and the rolls of her waist made the skintight dress look like a melting strawberry ice cream. It was grotesque. This is a fine mystery in the classic Agatha Christie style, and it is sure to leave mainstream fans wanting more." - BooklistReading this during a steamy Australian summer is an interesting experience. Here it’s the kind of weather when you find yourself stripped down to barely acceptable clothing and opening the fridge or freezer a little more often than necessary. There, in the Canadian winter, you have to pile on the layers to try to retain what body heat there is, becoming barely acceptable in another ‘fashion’. And if you read this book you’ll LOVE it as I did - IF you believe the Shadow ALWAYS haunts us all! Meanwhile, 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 As the first book is replete with Quebecois culture, so is this one, like eating smoked salmon on X-mas Eve or fresh oysters on New Year's Day or managing extraordinarily cold winters or wondering about how uptight Anglophones are.

There’s a lot of references to film and literature, so it’s a literary mystery; Gamache watches The Lion in Winter--there’s a Richard Lion in the story--we reference Eleanor of Aquitane, and Leonard Cohen! And there’s the “three graces,” connected to some older women friends that are central to the story. There are central mother-daughter stories. And curling jokes throughout. This book is a small and perfect literary jewel. Penny is the best writer of traditional mysteries to come along in decades. I haven't read a book this beautifully written since A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell.” — Kingston Observer Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

FAVORITE QUOTE

The story takes a number of twist and turns and, again, I can understand its appeal. But I did have a lot of trouble buying into the way the Three Pines murder occurred; it just seemed completely implausible to me and unnecessarily complicated. As one of the characters asked, why go to all that trouble? Why not simply shoot her or something? With or without the unwelcome Nichol, the team has much to investigate: Where is Saul and what photos might he have taken of the curling match? Why does the coroner find excess niacin in CC’s body? Can it be possibly be coincidence that CC’s book, Be Calm, has the same name as the meditation center Bea Mayer, known as Mother, runs in Three Pines? After Gamache admires The Three Graces, Clara’s painting of Mother and the two other elderly women who are her best friends in Three Pines, she tells him about her poisonous encounter with CC at Ogilvy’s—and he quietly adds Clara’s name to the long list of suspects.

I understand that completely. It went through a deep, dark period after my late partner died of cancer, but I made changes in my life that led me to a much happier existence than that which I lived before I met Jeff. But at his core he believed the world a lovely place. And his photographs reflected that, catching the light, the brilliance, the hope. And the shadows that naturally challenged the light. Gamache was the best of them, the smartest and bravest and strongest because he was willing to go into his own head alone, and open all the doors there, and enter all the dark rooms. And make friends with what he found there.And he went into the dark, hidden rooms in the minds of others. The minds of killers. And he faced down whatever monsters came at him. "

Audio Excerpt

In this case, a particularly unpleasant woman is murdered in a very complicated and public way while attending a curling match. Sitting at the front of the crowd, the victim stands up, touches the chair in front of her and is promptly electrocuted. I like the picture,' he said, knowing the insult. He'd taken the picture. He knew she was asking, pleading, for more and he knew he no longer cared to give it. And he wondered how much longer he could be around CC de Poitiers before he became her. Not physically, of course. At forty-eight she was a few years younger than him. She was slim and ropy and toned, her teeth impossibly white and her hair impossibly blonde. Touching her was like caressing a veneer of ice. There was a beauty to it, and a frailty he found attractive. But there was also danger. If she ever broke, if she shattered, she'd tear him to pieces.