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Gamache's decision to appoint Robert Lemeiux to homicide? I don't think that Gamache ever does anything for an obvious or straightforward reason. Can't say anything more because... spoilers, LOL.

By the ending, do you mean finding out that Crie was CC's murderer? Or the paper bag from Billy Williams that Reine-Marie gives Armand?

The first, I knew because of seeing Three Pines before I read this book (I actually only realized I'd missed the early books because of the series). The plot is somewhat different, Crie is certainly different, but we have a different understanding of exactly how damaged she is and has been by both parents. So it makes even more sense that Crie would murder her mother, who was a pathetic monster, really.

Billy Williams is the definition of "still waters run deep". Unless he really is God (which I don't think was the intention of that scene), I think he is just very observant. And overheard Gamache's conversation with Emilie Longpre in the bistro, including The Four Lines (which we don't actually see until the very last page). People in discussions make much of not understanding Billy, but my take on this is this: Have you ever been to Newfoundland? If you go to the more isolated parts of the province, and hear Newfoundlanders talk to each other, you will not, I guarantee you, understand a single word, even though it is ostensibly English (that is, unless you, too, are a Newfoundlander). Yet if you ask them a question, they can speak English that is completely understandable. I think Billy is absolutely capable of speaking perfect English -- but he's selective in who he speaks it with.

Both Lemieux and Billy's paper bag are part of the long arc. So no spoilers, but they are.

Two other people in this novel that I would like to address are Yvette Nichol and Jean-Guy.

Nichol is an enigma, and pretty messed up. I've even heard one reader suggest that she is neuro-diverse. But Penny is holding her cards close to her chest on this character. She is, on the one hand, manipulative and needy and eager to advance (and do what she needs to in order to get there). But on the other hand, she's also the one who takes care of Beauvoir when he sick with the flu (including holding a puke bucket for him). Dysfunctional family life is something she has in common with him.

(I'm actually kind of curious about the "Beauvoir with the flu" scene in the book, and wonder what others think about it).

This novel is a key piece to the character development of Beauvoir, both the picture of him as a brash young man throwing himself headlong into life, but also as someone who has already suffered some significant emotional damage in his youth and who doesn't really want to engage in any introspection whatsoever. The description on p. 59 of Beauvoir's fear of Gamache being able to read his mind/thoughts is both funny ("He'd find a lot of embarrassing stuff up there. More than a little pornography") and a sad description of a character who is intelligent and completely emotionally blocked. Having read this much later than subsequent books, it created a ton of context for what ensues (but no spoilers).

I do go on. Sorry :-)

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