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

by Louise Penny

“Spot and Claire. Spot must be a nickname.” “Let’s hope.”

But since one of the invitations went to Three Pines they will of course know the mystery brother and his wife! One of Gamache’s favorite people!

“I know Daddy’s secret,” Julia was hissing. “I had to spend my life as far from you as I could get to figure it out, but I finally did. And now I’m back. And I know.” She grinned malevolently and stared around the room.

Well, that seals it…she’s our murder victim to be!

“They’ll never forgive me, you know.” She stood up, smoothed her dress, and wiped the tears and mucus from her face. “Morrows have long memories for things like this. It was a mistake to come back. Foolish, really.” She gave a small snort of laughter. “I think I might leave before breakfast tomorrow.”

Oh, you’ll be leaving but not the way you think!

Not everything needed to be brought into the light, he knew. Not every truth needed to be told. And he knew she was right. He’d seen their faces as she’d fled. She’d said too much. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t see it, but he knew something foul had just come to light, come to life.

And therein lies our murder.

“Angels bowling,” said Reine-Marie. “Mother told me.”

My grandfather always told me this!

“There were ants everywhere,”

Somehow this ties in I think. The missing sugar, the wasps and bees and the ants. Don’t know why or what but I think it’s a clue.

After years of investigating murders Chief Inspector Gamache knew one thing about hate. It bound you forever to the person you hated. Murder wasn’t committed out of hate, it was done as a terrible act of freedom. To finally rid yourself of the burden.

There’re ants everywhere, and just wait. Wasps’ll come and sting you.”

Ants and wasps again!

And so many vaguely troubling things suddenly made sense. The world-class chef hidden away. The army of young English workers. Never older, never French. Why she never greeted the guests. And why she lived, year round, on the shores of an isolated lake.

You just knew there was going to be a shoe drop about her because of the way Beauvoir has been behaving.

“What’s happened?” Gamache asked. “Elliot Byrne is missing,” said Beauvoir. “It was noticed sometime between the breakfast and the luncheon service.”

Why would no one have called Gamache?

“We’re all blessed and we’re all blighted, Chief Inspector,” said Finney. “Every day each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?”