In this 18th book in the 'Chief Inspector Armand Gamache' series, the detective faces off against an old foe. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the series is a bonus.
*****
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of the homicide department at Montreal's Sûreté du Québec.....
......has a close relationship with his son-in-law, and former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir.
In this book we learn that Gamache first met Jean-Guy at an outlying Sûreté station when Gamache was investigating the murder of a woman named Clothilde Arsenault. Agent Beauvoir - whose behavior verged on insubordination - had been relegated to a desk job in the department's basement, but Gamache saw something in the young man and made him part of the Sûreté homicide squad.
Gamache and Beauvoir determine that Clothilde Arsenault, whose body was found in a lake, was bashed in the head with a brick.
When the investigators inform Clothilde's children, Fiona (14) and Sam (10), the kids behave oddly. Afterwards the detectives learn the Arsenault home was so abusive the siblings might never recover. The detectives also sense something 'off' about the youngsters, with Gamache thinking Sam is a sociopath and Beauvoir believing the same about Fiona.
In the following years Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie take Fiona under their wings, and make her feel like part of their family in Three Pines. Now Fiona and another young woman from Three Pines, Harriet Landers - niece of bookstore owner Myrna Landers - are graduating from engineering school and the village plans a big celebration.
The only fly in the ointment for Gamache is that Fiona's brother Sam, whom Gamache dislikes and distrusts, is coming to town for a visit.
After the graduation festivities, Myrna Landers, who lives in a cramped apartment above her bookstore, mentions she's thinking of moving to a larger place outside Three Pines.
Myrna's friends are aghast, and budding engineer Fiona suggests opening the attic room above Myrna's apartment. What?? What attic room?? Myrna knows nothing about an attic room.
It seems Fiona observed a roof feature showing the presence of an attic loft. Moreover, a 150-year-old letter recently showed up in Three Pines, which mentions bricking up a creepy room in the 1800s. The whole village gathers to break into the previously unknown chamber, and a surprise is revealed - a copy of a 17th century painting called The Paston Treasure, which depicts valuable objects owned by the Paston family.
The attic space also contains other odds and ends, including a medieval grimoire - a book with magic spells and incantations.
The attic copy of the Paston painting is subtly altered with sinister additions, and Gamache is certain it's the work of his sworn enemy, serial killer John Fleming. Gamache believes the painting is a death threat from Fleming, but the killer's been incarcerated for years.
And how could the picture get into a room sealed over a century ago? There are a lot of mysteries to be solved here, and the presence of Fiona and Sam Arsenault make things even murkier.
The book is a thriller filled with assaults, murders, corrupt cops, and more. The story also refers to the (real life) 1989 massacre of fourteen female engineering students at Montreal's École Polytechnique, by an anti-feminist gunman.
All the favorite Three Pines residents appear in the story, including mad old poet Ruth Zardo and her duck Rosa;
artist Clara Morrow;
and B&B owners Olivier and Gabri.
I enjoyed the novel, my major criticism being too much talk about evil people 'getting into' Gamache's head and doing damage, which seemed like psychobabble. Still, this is a good book, recommended to fans of the series.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Robert Bathurst, who does a good job, though his 'women's voices' are a bit off.
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