"A Fatal Grace"

"Dead Cold" by Louise Penny is also known as "A Fatal Grace" which was the version I found at my local library.  This is a Three Pines Mystery and the second book in Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series set in Canada.  Three Pines is a fictional hamlet created by Penny and "located" outside Montreal.  After reading her 6th book in the series, "Bury Your Dead," I decided I wanted to read them in order and watch the characters develop throughout the series.

"A Fatal Grace" is the winner of The New Blood Dagger and the Arthur Ellis award.  This mystery puzzles me somewhat because it refers to a case that Gamache needs to revisit that has been a blight on his career but doesn't give complete enough details to satisfy me so I'm hoping that mystery will eventually be cleared up in future books in the series.

It's winter in Three Pines and CC de Poitiers is a fairly new resident in town purchasing the Hadley house on the hill - moving in with her husband and their overweight daughter.  CC has self published a book and is in the process of trying some other ventures but what she seems most accomplished at is verbally destroying her daughter's self-esteem, being absent from hearth and home, and creating in others a total dislike of her!  So....it's no surprise when she ends up murdered but the method of her murder puzzles Gamache and his team and it will take some sleuthing to uncover a cunning murderer who had the ability to electrocute CC on a frozen lake in full view of a crowd of spectators at the annual curling tournament.

Once again I was treated to continued character development of the residents of Three Pines and Gamache's team as they attempt to solve the murder of this universally disliked woman.  At the start of the investigation Gamache asks Robert Lemieux to join his team for this investigation.  (Lemieux was the duty officer at the Cowansville police station who informed Gamache of the death.)

Once again, I read this book quickly and I'm already awaiting arrival of the next book in the series.

pazt