The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #11)

by Louise Penny

Summer was gone and autumn was on the doorstep. Leaves were just turning. Brilliant reds and yellows and amber maples dotted the gardens and forest. Some leaves had already fallen onto the grass of the village green. It was a perfect time of year, when late summer flowers were still blooming and the leaves were turning, and the grass was still green, but the nights were chilly and sweaters were out and fires were beginning to be lit. So that the hearths at night resembled the forests in the day, all giddy and bright and cheerful.

The line between fact and fiction, between real and imagined, was blurring. The tether holding people to civil behavior was fraying. They could see it, and hear it, and feel it coming apart.