A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)

by Louise Penny

At Christmas homes were full of the people there and the people not there.

In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while,’ she admitted. ‘Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.’

So much more comforting to see bad in others; gives us all sorts of excuses for our own bad behavior. But good? No, only really remarkable people see the good in others.

For Ruth Zardo, dull was one of the greatest insults. It ranked right up there with kind and nice.

‘You need to know this. Everything makes sense. Everything. We just don’t know how yet.

Here’s lesson number two. If you don’t know something, ask. You have to be able to admit you don’t know something, otherwise you’ll just get more and more confused, or worse, you’ll jump to a false conclusion. All the mistakes I’ve made have been because I’ve assumed something and then acted as though it was fact. Very dangerous, Agent Lemieux. Believe me. I wonder if you haven’t already leaped to a false conclusion?’

They’d both swelled since they’d first met. There was no way either would get into their wedding clothes. But they’d grown in other ways as well, and Gamache figured it was a good deal. If life meant growth in all directions, it was fine with him.

Beauvoir was no Picasso, which was a good thing for a homicide inspector. His drawings were always very clear and straightforward.

Chief Inspector Gamache’s bad side was legend. Not because it was so bad, but because it was so well hidden. Hardly anyone had ever found it. But those that did never ever forgot.

Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.