LOUISE PENNY’S

A Fatal Grace

(Book 2)

Book Summary

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Winner of the 2007 Agatha Award for Best Novel!

From the Dagger award winning author Louise Penny comes the second Armand Gamache mystery set in the stunning countryside of Quebec.

Welcome to winter in Three Pines, a picturesque village in Quebec, where the villagers are preparing for a traditional country Christmas, and someone is preparing for murder.

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 Quebec, 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.

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Excerpt


Had CC de Poitiers known she was going to be murdered she might have bought her husband, Richard, a Christmas gift. She might even have gone to her daughter’s end of term pageant at Miss Edward’s School for Girls, or ‘girths’ as CC liked to tease her expansive daughter. Had CC de Poitiers known the end was near she might have been at work instead of in the cheapest room the Ritz in Montreal had to offer. But the only end she knew was near belonged to a man named Saul. ‘So, what do you think? Do you like it?’ She balanced her book on her pallid stomach.

Audio Excerpt


Reading Group Guide


  • In the golden age of classic murder mysteries, the Detection Club, whose founders included Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, drew up a list of rules for crime fiction that included the following: “No clue that is important to the solution of the puzzle may be concealed from the reader.” What are the clues to the murders in A Fatal Grace, and how does Louise Penny hide them in plain sight?
  • Consider the lines (from “A Sad Child,” by Margaret Atwood”): “Well, all children are sad / but some get over it.” A number of the people in the novel have had damaging childhoods. What helps or hinders them in moving beyond those childhoods?
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