Addictive Books

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. One of the beloved residents, Miss Jane Neal, art enthusiast and retired school teacher, was shot in the heart with an arrow.

Inspector Gamache investigates after CC de Poitiers, a sadistic socialite, is fatally electrocuted at a Christmas curling competition in the small Québécois town of Three Pines. CC, who had a "spiritual guidance" business based on eliminating emotion, was hated by seemingly everyone, including her husband, lover, and daughter.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is in Paris. On their first night the Gamaches have dinner with the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured. It was no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man's life.

While the good residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, Chief Inspector Gamache finds his holiday interrupted by a simple request. He's asked to provide security for a visiting Professor of Statistics giving a lecture at the nearby university. But then madness breaks out.

As the villagers prepare for a special celebration at Three Pines, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A man and woman have reappeared in the investigators’ lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village. But to what end?