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

by Louise Penny

CC was like an alchemist, with the unlikely gift of turning gold into lead.

And I won’t even ask where you found it.’ He was very grateful for that.

She wore little make-up, comfortable with the face she’d been given.

The beginning of another mystery. But Gamache knew this mystery, like all murders, had begun long ago. This was neither the beginning nor the end.

better to risk than live in fear.’

everything about her was thin. Her body, her arms, her lips and her humor.

lumpen

‘Voilà. It’s good to be home.’ He took her in his arms and kissed her, feeling her soft body beneath his coat. 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.

faxes and computers, setting up desks and blackboards and unloading equipment. But Gamache heard none of that. He concentrated totally on what was being said.

Gamache brought his hand, warmed by his coffee, to his nose. It was cold. And a little wet. Had he been a dog it would have been a better sign.

Just talking about curling was sucking the will to live right out of him. It was like some Anglo joke, an excuse to wear plaid and yell.

lifted her arms and spread them out in what looked like an embrace, the folds of her purple caftan dripping down so that she resembled something out of a Renaissance painting, by a not very good artist.

It stood outside the circle, on the verge of the village. Beyond the pale.

‘The monster wasn’t Frankenstein,’ Dr Harris reminded him. ‘Dr Frankenstein created the monster.’ Gamache felt his chest tighten as she spoke. There was something there. Something he’d been approaching and missing throughout this case.

He hugged her and whispered in her ear, ‘Don’t mess up.’

Ay ay

He knew she was holding something back, but chose not to press. Besides, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the case and Armand Gamache had no stomach to breach someone else’s boundaries just because he could.

Gamache lay in bed, feeling the fresh freezing air from the slightly open window on his face, and the bed sheets warm around him.

it was supposed to be –20 that night.

With a wrench Gamache opened the car door, which screamed in protest, its hinges frozen and crying.

Jean Guy Beauvoir had learned at the age of six that nowhere was safe and no one could be trusted.

she was so grounded it killed her.