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

by Louise Penny

Doesn’t matter. God likes my work.’ ‘And by God you mean the shit-covered bag lady?’ ‘Exactly.’

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.

It was almost impossible to electrocute someone these days, unless you were the governor of Texas.

Everything makes sense. Everything. We just don’t know how yet. You have to see through the murderer’s eyes. That’s the trick, Agent Lemieux, and that’s why not everyone’s cut out for homicide. You need to know that it seemed like a good idea, a reasonable action, to the person who did it. Believe me, not a single murderer ever thought, “Wow, this is stupid, but I’m going to do it anyway.” No, Agent Lemieux, our job is to find the sense.’

Beauvoir tried to look both interested and knowledgable. He was neither.

‘Let every man shovel out his own snow, and the whole city will be passable,’ said Gamache. Seeing Beauvoir’s puzzled expression he added, ‘Emerson.’ ‘Lake and Palmer?’ ‘Ralph and Waldo.’

It was his lifeboat, made of words, which had kept him afloat on their sea of misery and suffering.

‘Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There’s a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.’

The siren blasted through the frozen air and into every house in the village, traveling through fieldstone and mortar, through thick pink insulation and clapboard, through sweet dreams and restless sleeps, and announced a nightmare.