Best Selling Books by Louise Penny

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes.Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the S ret du Qu bec to places even he is afraid to go. But must.And there he finds four young cadets in the S ret academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.Everywhere Gamache turns, he sees Amelia Choquet, one of the cadets. Tattooed and pierced. Guarded and angry. Amelia is more likely to be found on the other side of a police line-up. And yet she is in the academy. A prot g e of the murdered professor.The focus of the investigation soon turns to Gamache himself and his mysterious relationship with Amelia, and his possible involvement in the crime. The frantic search for answers takes the investigators back to Three Pines and a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets.For both Amelia Choquet and Armand Gamache, the time has come for a great reckoning.#1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny pulls back the layers to reveal a brilliant and emotionally powerful truth in her latest spellbinding novel.

Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûrete du Quebec, has found a peace he''d only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole." While Gamache doesn''t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache''s help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There''s power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her. Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Quebec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence river. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it The land God gave to Cain. And there theydiscover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul.  Praise for How the Light Gets In"Another bravura performance from an author who has reinvented the village mystery as profoundly as Dashiell Hammett transformed the detective novel." - Booklist (starred) "Penny impressively balances personal courage and faith with heartbreaking choices and monstrous evil." - Publishers Weekly (starred) "A masterful, nuanced suspense novel in which tone and setting are just as riveting as the murder''s who and why." -People (four stars)

When a mysterious figure appears in Three Pines one cold November day, Armand Gamache and the rest of the villagers are at first curious. Then wary. Through rain and sleet, the figure stands unmoving, staring ahead. From the moment its shadow falls over the village, Gamache, now Chief Superintendent of the Surete du Quebec, suspects the creature has deep roots and a dark purpose. Yet he does nothing. What can he do? Only watch and wait. And hope his mounting fears are not realized. But when the figure vanishes overnight and a body is discovered, it falls to Gamache to discover if a debt has been paid or levied. Months later, on a steamy July day as the trial for the accused begins in Montreal, Chief Superintendent Gamache continues to struggle with actions he set in motion that bitter November, from which there is no going back. More than the accused is on trial. Gamache''s own conscience is standing in judgment. In her latest utterly gripping book, number-one New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny shatters the conventions of the crime novel to explore what Gandhi called the court of conscience. A court that supersedes all others.

The incredible new book in Louise Penny''s #1 bestselling Chief Inspector Gamache series. When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is asked to provide crowd control at a statistics lecture given at the Université de l''Estrie in Quebec, he is dubious. Why ask the head of homicide to provide security for what sounds like a minor, even mundane lecture? But dangerous ideas about who deserves to live in order for society to thrive are rapidly gaining popularity, fuelled by the research of the eminent Professor Abigail Robinson. Yet for every person seduced by her theories there is another who is horrified by them. When a murder is committed days after the lecture, it''s clear that within crowds can lie madness. To uncover the truth, Gamache must put his own feelings about the divisive Professor to one side. But with her ideas gaining ground, the line separating good and evil, right and wrong, is quickly blurring - especially when the case leads unexpectedly close to home ... PRAISE FOR LOUISE PENNY AND THE INSPECTOR GAMACHE SERIES: ''Louise Penny is one of the greatest crime writers of our times'' DENISE MINA ''She makes most of her competitors seem like wannabes'' THE TIMES ''Gamache has become to Canada what Hercule Poirot is to Belgium'' THE NEW YORK TIMES ''Louise Penny twists and turns the plot expertly tripping the reader up just at the moment you think you might have solved the mystery'' DAILY EXPRESS ''The series is deep and grand and altogether extraordinary . . . Miraculous'' WASHINGTON POST ''No one does atmospheric quite like Louise Penny.'' ELLY GRIFFITHS ''An absolute joy'' IRISH TIMES

The New York Times Bestseller ''Stellar . . . With her smart plot and fascinating, nuanced characters, Penny proves again that she is one of our finest writers'' (People Magazine) In the green depths of spring, morning breaks on a woman splayed in a bed of flowers - her eyes wide, her neck broken. Her death is a mystery; so is the woman herself. But as Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team peer into the dark corners of the victim''s past, they expose a secret that rots at the very heart of their community - a secret that will implicate someone they''ve trusted for years. And as Gamache knows too well, in the flickering shadows of death, the truth may be just a trick of the light.

On a cold November morning, a jogger runs through the woods in the peaceful Quebec village of Three Pines. On his run, he finds a dead man hanging from a tree. The dead man was a guest at the local Inn and Spa. He might have been looking for peace and quiet, but something else found him. Something horrible. Did the man take his own life? Or was he murdered? Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to the crime scene. As Gamache follows the trail of clues, he opens a door into the past. And he learns the true reason why the man came to Three Pines. This is a quick and easy read for people on the go.

''A cracking storyteller, who can create fascinating characters, a twisty plot and wonderful surprise endings'' ANN CLEEVES ''One of the most interesting detectives in crime fiction'' THE TIMES There is more to solving a crime than following the clues. Welcome to Chief Inspector Gamache''s world of facts and feelings. The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues to a place called Three Pines. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of the village - a place so free from crime it doesn''t even have its own police force. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets... Millions of readers worldwide. One inimitable Chief Inspector Gamache.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life in Three Pines, finding long buried secrets—and facing a few enemies of his own. With nine books in the series and more to come, this boxed set of the first three books—Still Life, A Fatal Grace, and The Cruelest Month—introduces not only the engaging series hero Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces—and this series—with integrity and quiet courage, but also the spectacular Louise Penny. A #1 New York Times bestseller and multiple award winner, Louise Penny "writes with grace and intelligence" (New York Times Book Review) and "with her smart plot and fascinating, nuanced characters...proves that she is one of our finest writers (People). The acclaimed series is a sensation—there are nearly 850,000 print copies in the US and Canada alone, and it has been translated into 35 languages.

Winner of the Anthony Award for Best Crime Novel Winner of the Macavity Award for Best Crime Novel Winner of the Agatha Award for Best Crime Novel ''Penny''s writing is intricate, beautiful and compelling'' PETER JAMES There is more to solving a crime than following the clues. Welcome to Chief Inspector Gamache''s world of facts and feelings. Hidden deep in the wilderness are the cloisters of two dozen monks - men of prayer and music, famous the world over for their glorious voices. But a brutal death throws the monastery doors open to the world. And through them walks the only man who can shine light upon the dark deeds within: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Who among the brothers has become an angel of death? As the peace of the monastery crumbles around him, Gamache finds clues in the divine, the human . . . and the cracks in between. Millions of readers worldwide. One inimitable Chief Inspector Gamache.

Former Chief Inspector of Homicide, Armand Gamache, has found a peace he''d never imagined possible in the tranquil village of Three Pines. But when his friend Clara Morrow asks for help, he can''t bring himself to refuse her. Clara''s husband, Peter, is missing, having failed to come home on the first anniversary of their separation. As Gamache journeys further into Quebec, he is drawn deeper into the tortured mind of Peter Morrow, a man desperate to recapture his fame as an artist. As Gamache gets closer to the truth, he uncovers a deadly trail of deceit. Can Gamache bring Peter home safely? Or in searching for answers, has he placed himself, and those closest to him, in terrible danger...

As Quebec shivers in the grip of winter, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache plunges into the strangest case of his career. A man has been brutally murdered in one of the city''s oldest buildings; a library where the English citizens of Quebec safeguard their history. The death opens a door into the past, exposing a mystery that has lain dormant for centuries. A mystery Gamache must solve if he''s to catch a present-day killer. Police procedural.

When Chief Inspector Gamache arrives in picturesque Three Pines in Quebec, he finds a village in chaos. A man has been found bludgeoned to death, and there is no sign of a weapon, a motive or even the dead man''s name.

It''s Gamache''s first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter. As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.

Un dimanche d''automne, le jour se lève sur le charmant village québécois de Three Pines, et les maisons reprennent vie peu à peu. Toutes, sauf une... La découverte dans la forêt du cadavre de Jane Neal bouleverse les habitants de la petite communauté. Qui pouvait bien souhaiter la mort de cette enseignante à la retraite, peintre à ses heures, qui a vu grandir tous les enfants du village et dirigeait l''association des femmes de l''église anglicane ? L''inspecteur-chef Armand Gamache, de la Sûreté du Québec, est dépêché sur les lieux. Il ne croit guère à un accident de chasse. Au cours de sa longue carrière au sein de l''escouade des homicides, il a appris à se méfier des apparences. Tandis que ses adjoints procèdent aux premiers interrogatoires, il s''abstrait du tumulte, s''assied sur un banc, dans le parc du village, s''imprègne des lieux et fait ce qu''il sait faire le mieux : il observe. Alors, lentement, à force d''attention, la perfection du tableau s''estompe. Des craquelures d''abord invisibles lézardent le vernis, l''œil averti devine les retouches, les coupables repentirs, les inavouables repeints. Bientôt, la fresque idyllique livrera ses terribles secrets... Avec ce premier volet des enquêtes de l''inspecteur-chef Armand Gamache, Louise Penny a concocté un roman plein de charme, de subtilité et d''humour, dans la plus pure tradition des grands maîtres de la littérature policière.

"On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand''s godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Gamache knows is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man''s life. When a strange key is found in Stephen''s possession it sends Armand, his wife Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the Sûreté, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, from the top of the Tour d''Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives, from luxury hotels to odd, coded, works of art. It sends them deep into the secrets Armand''s godfather has kept for decades. A gruesome discovery in Stephen''s Paris apartment makes it clear the secrets are more rancid, the danger far greater and more imminent, than they realized. Soon the whole family is caught up in a web of lies and deceit. In order to find the truth, Gamache will have to decide whether he can trust his friends, his colleagues, his instincts, his own past. His own family. For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide"--Provided by publisher.