The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

by Louise Penny

My dad always said a violin sings and a fiddle dances.”

“Most unhappiness comes from not being able to sit quietly in a room.”

“It’s a Buddhist belief. One of the states of man from the Wheel of Life. The more you eat the hungrier you get. It’s considered the very worst of the lives. Trying to fill a hole that only gets deeper. Fill it with food or money or power. With the admiration of others. Whatever.”

What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some to their knees? And Gamache thought he had the answer. Regret. Regret for things said, for things done, and not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.