This is the third book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series that I have read and it is the second in the series.

Clara’s joy at the Christmas windows is disrupted by a filthy pile of blankets that turns out to be a beggar throwing up.

I had assumed the quaint and tiny community in the Quebec Eastern Townships would be a one-off setting for Gamache's inaugural adventure, since he is charged with solving crimes all over the province. She plans to make that place hers, and in her mind, she plans to raze all that makes the place amazing. Myrna looked out the window and wondered whether their peace, so fragile and precious, was about to be shattered.

I guessed the murderer early on, but I get the feeling that whodunnit is less important to these books than the local color, the ambience, the sweet community. Located in the Equitable Building in Manhattan, Minotaur Books publishes bestselling and award-winning crime fiction ranging from thrillers and suspense to traditional mysteries. As you wrote, there is so much more to be found in one of Louise Penny’s books than can be noted in one read-through.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. And for a while it seemed that it was only the characters who were being cruel but then I read this passage about a 12 year old girl. I think ten years ago I would have fallen in love with this series, because the lies it tells about doing good and doing evil are told in such pretty prose, with all the symbols of cosiness -- wood fires and snowfall, old friends gathering around candlelit tables, poetry and music and books. At fifty-two Saul Petrov was just beginning to notice his friends weren't quite as brilliant, not quite as clever, not quite as slim as they once were.