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

by Louise Penny

Chief Inspector Gamache stood on rue Sherbrooke, in downtown Montréal, and stared at the heavy, red brick church across the street. It wasn’t made with bricks so much as huge, rectangular ox blood stones. He’d passed it hundreds of times while driving and never really looked at it. But now he did. It was dark and ugly and uninviting. It didn’t shout salvation. Didn’t even whisper it. What it did shout was penance and atonement. Guilt and punishment. It looked like a prison for sinners. Few would enter with an easy step and light heart. But now another memory stirred. Of the church bright, not quite in flames, but glowing. And the street he was on a river, and the people reeds. This was the church on Lillian Dyson’s easel. Unfinished, but already a work of genius. If he’d had any doubts, seeing the real thing vanquished them. She’d taken a building, a scene, most would find foreboding and made it into something dynamic and alive. And deeply attractive. As Gamache watched, the cars became a stream of vehicles. And the people entering the church were reeds. Floating in. Drawn in. As was he.