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

by Louise Penny

“I can resist everything except temptation.”

looked across the lake in the slowly fading glow, as though a day of such beauty was reluctant to end.

“Poverty can grind a person down,” said Gamache quietly. “But so can privilege.”

Order freed the mind for other things.

You get what you give? That’s what he always said. And he gave nothing.”

“The mind is its own place, monsieur,” said Reine-Marie. “Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. This is heaven. Always will be.” “This place? Manoir Bellechasse?” “No.” She put her arms around him. “This place.”

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.

It was in the pauses. Never the words, but the hesitations. Sandra had spent the first few years ignoring it, agreeing with Thomas that she was just too sensitive. Then she’d spent a few years trying to change, to be slim enough, sophisticated enough, elegant enough. Then she’d entered therapy and spent a few years fighting back.

Then she’d surrendered. And started taking it out on others.