A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #4)

by Louise Penny

What the French called soignée.

Where Thomas and Julia were slim and attractive, Marianna was short and plump and unmistakably ugly.

order was freedom. To live in chaos was to live in a prison. Order freed the mind for other things.

He went ahead of all the rest, into territory unknown and uncharted. He was drawn to the edge of things. To the places old mariners knew, and warned, “Beyond here be monsters.”

Murder was deeply human. A person was killed and a person killed. And what powered the final thrust wasn’t a whim, wasn’t an event. It was an emotion. Something once healthy and human had become wretched and bloated and finally buried. But not put to rest. It lay there, often for decades, feeding on itself, growing and gnawing, grim and full of grievance. Until it finally broke free of all human restraint. Not conscience, not fear, not social convention could contain it. When that happened, all hell broke loose. And a man became a murderer.

“We’re not a close family. I sometimes wonder what’ll happen after Mother goes. She’s the one we come to see, the others are just there.”