A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #7)

by Louise Penny

One hand held the other lightly. In a new, but necessary, gesture.

Some cracks let the light in. Some let the darkness out.

The Chief believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you’ll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn’t. He believed that if you sift through good, you’ll find evil. Without borders, without brakes, without limit.

“Very annoying, having a smart second in command. I long for the days you used to just tug your forelock and agree with me.” “And when were those?” “Right again. This must stop.”

Except a very, very slight tremor in his right hand, which he now closed into a fist.

And noticed the very, very slight tremble.

Any owner of a high-end art gallery was immediately suspect, of arrogance if not murder. Jean-Guy Beauvoir had little tolerance for either.

“She sounds like an emotional vampire,” said Myrna, at last.

“I ran into quite a few in my practice. People who sucked others dry. We all know them. We’re in their company and come away drained, for no apparent reason.”

Inside every living thing, no matter how beautiful, if opened fully enough was darkness.

Not for the first time Three Pines struck Myrna as the equivalent of the Humane Society. Taking in the wounded, the unwanted. The mad, the sore. This was a shelter. Though, clearly, not a no-kill shelter.

His right hand trembled when he was tired or overstressed.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir noticed the tremble in the Chief’s right hand.

“Praying doesn’t make something a cult,” whispered the Chief.

But tonight he clung to his side of the bed, and she clung to hers, as though to dual cliff faces. Afraid to fall. But fearing they were about to.

Peter closed his eyes, slowly. A reptilian blink.

They knew, she presumed, that people in Three Pines might occasionally take a life, but not a car.

working private parties.

Was she working at Claire’s party?

In his experience foolish people were never harmless.

Most of us are brought down by a bunch of tiny transgressions. Little things that add up until we collapse under them. It’s fairly easy to avoid doing the big bad things, but it’s the hundred mean little things that’ll get you eventually. If you listen to people long enough you realize it’s not the slap or the punch, but the whispered gossip, the dismissive look. The turned back. That’s what people with any conscience are ashamed of. That’s what they drink to forget.” “And people without a conscience?” “They don’t end up in AA. They don’t think there’s anything wrong with them.”

“Sobriety isn’t for cowards, Chief Inspector. Whatever you might think of an alcoholic, to get sober, really sober demands great honesty, and that demands great courage. Stopping drinking’s the easy part. Then we have to face ourselves. Our demons. How many people are willing to do that?”

He more than most knew that peace, like Three Pines, could be very hard to find.

How had she found it?

We call it stinking thinking.

“How interesting that no cell phones work here. And not a car has come by since we’ve been walking. I wonder if the outside world even knows it’s here.” “It’s an anonymous village,” said Gamache. “Not on any map. You have to find your own way here.”

“How did you find Three Pines?”

She’d seemed old but Clara realized she was younger than Clara was now.

The problem with a pissing contest, as Gamache knew, was that what should have remained private became public. Chief Justice Pineault’s privates were on display.

That had been the problem. All his life he’d mistaken the one for the other. Thinking inspiration was enough. Mistaking the created for the Creator.

Had Castonguay been a Death Star, his head would have exploded.