Chief Inspector Armand Gamache / Three Pines Series #2, Louise Penny, 2006; 2007 Agatha Award Winner
As with all but one of the Gamache Mysteries, I listened to the Audible version, beautifully narrated by the late Ralph Cosham. Mr. Cosham gets ten stars out of five for narration. (Interesting: I’ve listened to another series he narrated, and of course he was good, but the magic isn’t there. Cosham and Gamache were the perfect marrage of narrator and character.)
Hockey features prominently in this tale, which takes place in the quaint hidden village of Three Pines in Quebec. A horrible woman is murdered (I actually breathed a sigh of relief when she died), but no one can figure out how the murder was carried out.
In addition to the murder that is solved in this book, the author builds on a plotline that’s carried out over several volumes in the series – a story of corruption and subtle retaliation against Chief Inspector Gamache. I was frustrated with Gamache’s apparent willingness to make himself vulnerable to this campaign against him, but it didn’t stop me from loving the book, and the frustration spurred me on to finish the rest of the series.
I would not recommend reading/listening to this book until after you’ve finished Still Life, the first in the series, due to spoilers.