A Fatal Grace: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel: 2

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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. 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. But life’s shadows are an essential part of relishing the refreshment of clear sunlight - there... and here. I like this book somewhat better than the first book, Still Life, and I rate it about 3.5 stars, anticipating that the best is yet to come. I guessed the murderer early on, but I get the feeling that whodunnit is less important to these books than the local color, the ambience, the sweet community. Winter is the main character, in a way, in this one; Peter finds a heart etched in the frost on his window by Clara one morning:

A Fatal Grace Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary

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. Meanwhile, a storm is brewing at Gamache's headquarters because of fall out from the mysterious Arnot case (which the reader first read about in the last book and finally gets to learn about in this one). 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. Saul looked at it, not for the first time. She'd dragged it out of her huge purse every five minutes for the past few days. In busi¬¨ness meetings, dinners, taxi rides through the snowy streets of Montreal, CC'd suddenly bend down and emerge triumphant, holding her creation as though another virgin birth. Nobody likes the victim of the murder, which makes the job harder for Gamache. As a reader, I was cheering for Gamache to solve the crime, but not because of the unlikeable CC de Poiters. She was as different a character from the victim of the first book, Jane, as you could possibly be.But her exterior wasn't the issue. Watching her caress her book with more tenderness than she'd ever shown when caressing him, he wondered whether her ice water insides had somehow seeped into him, perhaps during sex, and were slowly freezing him. Already he couldn't feel his core.

A Fatal Grace: Thick in Laughter; Layered in Meaning | The A Fatal Grace: Thick in Laughter; Layered in Meaning | The

It is seldom the case for me to feel a happy contentment when opening up a book. A feeling of "Oh, it feels so good to be home". Louise Penny has become a firm favorite in the murder mystery genre and I just loved to be home in the Three Pines village of Quebec again with all the characters welcoming me. This time it was the day after Christmas, the deadly winter was raging, and more people would die than ever imagined.

RECAP

It’s a storyline that’s not present in the novels, and serves as the entry point into a broader conversation in Canada right now, where there is a long history of police ignoring or closing the book on missing Indigenous women. As the rest of the season unravels, it’s just one touchstone into the Indigenous communities, as the adaptation makes other changes to further those conversations. 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." Along with the folks we met in the last installment, we are introduced to a few more. I liked reacquainting myself with the regulars and popping into the bistro and the cozy little homes again. Louise Penny allows a glimpse of the inner workings of several characters a bit more, and I found this refreshing. I suspect we’ll get to know them even more intimately with the next in the series. Something bigger than just the murder at hand seems to be brewing on the horizon - something with a sinister vibe that does not bode well for Gamache. I felt a little on edge about this! I guess it’s a thread that will perhaps run through the next several books, sort of tying them all together.