I realise I am a rare dissenter here, but this book was so awful it made my teeth hurt. It is a book in which the values the story claims to be promoting (compassion, love, generosity, respect for human dignity) are actually entirely undercut by the text itself. I think ten years ago I would have fallen in love with this series, because the lies it tells about doing good and doing evil are told in such pretty prose, with all the symbols of cosiness -- wood fires and snowfall, old friends gathering around candlelit tables, poetry and music and books. But the book itself is false all through. Poor Armand Gamache can never have a relaxing vacation. He is away with Reine-Marie Gamache celebrating their anniversary when there is a murder. They are not far from Three Pines and his chase leads him there. 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. Louise Penny's novels—there are 16 of them now—all "star" the brilliant and loveable Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, who is repeatedly sent to the tiny and picturesque Canadian village of Three Pines to solve the latest murder. (Other than the extremely high rate of murder, this would be an idyllic place to live!) I have borrowed the one-liner from Dead Cold “she was only famous in the mirror” (paraphrased) and have used it more than once. Re-reading the books allows me to enjoy the writing all over again.

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny | Waterstones

When Saul’s photos are developed, they somehow do not include any shots from the time of the murder. And as eager as Saul seems to be to start a new, better life in Three Pines, he still has one undeveloped roll of film that he hastily throws in the fireplace when Gamache and his team visit him at the chalet he has rented. Louise Penny is a gifted writer who has created in Chief Inspector Armand Gamache a sympathetic protagonist who appeals to large numbers of readers. She has also created a richly-imagined setting in the charming Canadian village of Three Pines, which is located somewhere just south of Montreal. The tiny hamlet is populated by a cast of quirky but mostly lovable characters who spend a lot of time walking through the snow and curling up in front of blazing fires. In doing so, Penny has attracted a legion of enthusiastic readers who, apparently, can hardly wait for each new installment of the series to appear. By Episodes 3 and 4, the show’s commitment to exploring those Indigenous stories in a meaningful way is clear, as the next murder goes down in an old residential school — a take on the haunted house featured in Penny’s third novel, “The Cruelest Month.” The storyline was conceptualized before mass graves of Indigenous children from residential schools were discovered and reported on in Canada, and so creatives enlisted Mohawk filmmaker and show consultant Tracey Deer to direct. No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter—and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. CC de Poitiers managed to alienate everyone, right up until the moment of her death.a b Dowling, Amber (November 29, 2022). " ' Three Pines ' Amplifies Indigenous Voices in Cinematic First Season Louise Penny Fans Will Love: TV Review". Variety . Retrieved November 29, 2022. In Penny's second mystery, we are introduced to the odious C.C. de Poitiers, a woman so vile and insufferable no one is sorry when she is electrocuted in a freakish "accident" during a Christmas curling match at Three Pines. Of course, the accident turns out to be no accident at all, and there are so many people who detested C.C., Gamache will have his hands full sorting through all the potential suspects. Three Pines resident, Clara Morrow is celebrating her first solo art show when Lillian is found dead in her garden. Chief Inspector Armond Gamache is called to the small Quebec town to solve the murder. No one liked CC de Poitiers -- not her family, not her lover, not her neighbors in Three Pines. Still, when Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to investigate CC's sudden death on the day after Christmas, it seems impossible: how could she have been electrocuted in the midst of Three Pines' annual curling match? As Gamache digs for secrets beneath the surface of village life, something even more chilling approaches.

A Fatal Grace Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary

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.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. Three Pines’ Amplifies Indigenous Voices in Cinematic First Season Louise Penny Fans Will Love: TV Review On Christmas Eve St Thomas’s was also filled with families, children excited and exhausted, elderly men and women who’d come to this place all their lives and sat in the same pew and worshipped the same God and baptized and married and buried those they loved. Some they never got to bury, but instead immortalized in the small stained glass window placed to get the morning, the youngest, light. They marched now in warm yellows and blues and greens, for ever perfect and petrified in the Great War. Etched below the brilliant boys were their names and the words ‘They Were Our Children’.”