No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter—and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. CC de Poitiers managed to alienate everyone, right up until the moment of her death.
When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, of the Sûreté du Québec, is called to investigate, he quickly realizes he's dealing with someone quite extraordinary. CC de Poitiers was electrocuted in the middle of a frozen lake, in front of the entire village, as she watched the annual curling tournament. And yet no one saw anything. Who could have been insane enough to try such a macabre method of murder—or brilliant enough to succeed?
With his trademark compassion and courage, Gamache digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life to find the dangerous secrets long buried there. For a Quebec winter is not only staggeringly beautiful but deadly, and the people of Three Pines know better than to reveal too much of themselves. But other dangers are becoming clear to Gamache. As a bitter wind blows into the village, something even more chilling is coming for Gamache himself.
Comment: This is the second book in the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny, whose first book I have read last year. This time, as then, it's because my buddy read friend and I have decided to read this series and we will try to do it in the following months.
In this second adventure, inspector Gamache and his team return to the quiet village of Three Pines to investigate the murder of CC de Poitiers, a socialite-alike who claims to have the perfect life teachings everyone needs and she plans to expand her philosophy Be Calm, mostly through a book and a deal with an American company. The problem is that CC herself is a despicable person and clearly someone has enough of her. The question is, why and why in Three Pines? What reason could this person, very much a city and luxury person at that, have to stay in Three Pines and even buy a house there?
I had a very good experience reading the first book in this series and I certainly assumed that reading this second one would be as good. I saw that there is even a TV series based on these books, apparently focused mainly on the events in this installment and I will check it out when I can, to compare. This story was as engaging as the previous one had been and I really felt myself "in the zone" reading it.
The mystery is very well planned. I keep being positively surprised by author's imagination in thinking about details and in how putting them together so that the big picture makes sense. For instance, the victim of this story, CC, is murdered by electrocution. Never would I think about all the necessary scientific elements and such that would make it a possibility, the way it was described, but it does add drama and gives off a certain "vibe", which made the experience of connecting the dots so much more interesting.
To be fair, the final explanation for the elaborated murdering was a little convoluted, considering what we learn in terms of red herrings, but the actual motif and the way the killer was portrayed at the end really gave me food for thought. I suppose this is the author's intention, according to her introductory note, that the point of these books is not only the investigation of a crime and all that is related to that task, but the study of human behavior and human psychology.
The characters in this book are all quite complex and added to the author's writing style it seems that everyone is slightly more mysterious than what they seem, I kind of like this tactic, this notion of being lead to believe that everyone has inner depths not immediately seen and that by observation and characters interacting, we get to peel off layers and nuances. Many authors cannot do this but I think it's a great way to not only perceive things but also to be captivated by the characters and what they do, what drives them... of course this might sound a little exaggerated for some readers.
All the secondary characters in this book were captivating and the little things we learn about them make them seem more important at times and then annoying at others. I do think that inspector Gamache does sound a little condescending at times but he is such a good guy, has unshakable principles and I keep rooting for him to succeed. Again, the way he connects the dots about what happened during this investigation was very interesting and made me think too.
The element I'e found weakest here was close to the end, when a certain situation happens and we get kind of mislead on the reasons for why it happened. I thought that the whole scenario was too melodramatic and when we know why it happened, what motivated the ones who did it to do it, even being aware of their psychological state of mind, their personalities, I was still a little disappointed, because it didn't make sense, not the way it was. I'd change this whole section, honestly.
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