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Chapters (43)
  1. A Fatal Grace
  2. ALSO BY LOUISE PENNY
  3. A Fatal Grace
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

‘You were bored and angry. I took you on when no one else wanted you.’ Gamache was speaking so softly no one else could hear. And he was speaking with open affection. Beauvoir suddenly remembered the lesson he always hurried to forget. 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. He went to places Beauvoir had never even dreamed existed.

That was why Armand Gamache was their chief. His chief. And that was why he loved him. And that was why Jean Guy Beauvoir struggled every day trying to protect this man who made it clear he neither wanted nor needed protection. Indeed, every day he tried to convince Beauvoir the protection was a travesty, a ruse. All it did was block his view of whatever horrible thing was heading his way. Best to see it, and meet it. And not try to hide behind armor that won’t protect anyway. Not against what they hunted.

‘But I’ll tell you what, Jean Guy,’ now Gamache smiled brilliantly and completely, ‘if you don’t want Agent Lemieux I’ll take him. I won’t impose him on you.’

‘Fine, take him, but don’t come crying to me when you find out he’s the murderer.’

Gamache laughed. ‘I have to admit, I’ve made a lot of bad choices, especially recently,’ he meant, but would never say, Agent Yvette Nichol, ‘but that would be the winner. Still, better to risk than live in fear.’

Gamache patted him on the arm with such easy affection it almost took Beauvoir’s breath away. And then he was gone, walking purposefully across the ice, nodding to the other investigators, as he made his way to Agent Robert Lemieux, to make the young man’s day. His week. His career.

Beauvoir watched as Gamache quietly spoke with Lemieux. He saw the young man’s face open in a look of such astonishment Beauvoir felt maybe the angels had appeared. It was a look Beauvoir had often seen from people speaking to Gamache. And had never, ever seen from anyone looking at him.

Beauvoir shook his head in wonderment and returned to the task at hand.

imageTEN image

‘Look who’s here,’ Peter called from the kitchen into the living room. Clara closed her book and joined her husband at the sink. Holding the curtains back she could see a familiar, well-liked figure coming up their path and beside him came someone else. A stranger.