The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

by Louise Penny

People lied all the time in murder investigations. If the first victim of war was the truth, some of the first victims of a murder investigation were people’s lies. The lies they told themselves, the lies they told each other. The little lies that allowed them to get out of bed on cold, dark mornings.

This man had a huge and terrible conscience riding herd on a huge and terrible greed.

But like everyone who moved, he took himself with him.

Was that where most murders began? Did they start as words? Something said that lodged and festered. That curdled. And killed.