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Cdnbookworm
Dec 27, 2013Cdnbookworm rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This novel in the series featuring Armand Gamache is set in the days leading up to Christmas. Armand's wife has travelled to France where his son's family now lives and Armand will be going there just before the holiday. At work, Armand's supporters seem to be dwindling. With his loyal officers in the homicide department being transferred away and new officers that don't respect him forming the majority of his department, Isabelle Lacoste is one of the only officers who still has his back. Armand badly misses his old right hand man Jean-Guy Beauvoir who blames Gamache for abandoning him and has sunk into an addiction that is destroying him. When Gamache is sent a message asking for advice from his friend Myrna Landers in the village of Three Pines, he decides to take the time to travel to the village and get away from the city. Myrna is worried about a friend of hers who was supposed to arrive the day before but hasn't, yet when Gamache asks for information on this friend, Myrna is reluctant to reveal the woman's name. When she finally does, Gamache finds that this woman was once famous around the world, but has been largely out of the news in many years, living under another name than her own. As Gamache digs into the woman's past, he finds he has to go back to her childhood to discover the motivations behind her fate. It is in Three Pines that Gamache feels safe, but is that feeling of safety an illusion created by the lack of data signals and its cozy atmosphere, or is it really a haven for Gamache and his supporters. This book continues the threat to Gamache that begin to appear several books ago, coming to an intense and dramatic head that will change everything, not only for Gamache and his family, but also his friends, and perhaps even Quebec itself. A real page-turner.