It's been at least ten or twelve years since I have visited with Chief Inspector Armand Gamache who I found is now being pushed toward retirement. It’s a great relief for Inspector Gamache to finally get out of the office and go to Three Pines. He's been asked to help bookseller, Myrna, find out why her friend Constance didn’t turn up on Christmas. Gamache’s staff has been whittled down to almost no one by Chief Superintendent Francoeur. Gamache’s decisions have been mostly ignored and bets placed on how soon he’ll give it up and retire. Even worse, a recent tragedy has led his second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, to transfer out of Gamache’s department. Beauvoir has also taken to the overuse of prescription drugs and holds his former boss in contempt. On his way to Three Pines, Gamache comes upon a fatality and agrees to handle the details. The case takes a back seat when Constance disappears and then turns up dead in her home. Myrna tells Constance’s secret: She was the last surviving quintuplet; she’d spent her adult years craving privacy after the national publicity surrounding the birth of herself and her four sisters. It had turned them into daily fodder for newspapers. Why would anyone want to murder this reclusive 79-year-old woman? The answer is found through clues that would make Agatha Christie proud. Gamache interprets while dealing with the dismemberment of his entire homicide department by Francoeur, who’s been plotting a major insult to the Canadian government for 30 years. Matters come to a head when Gamache and the one chief still loyal to him and her husband, a computer whiz, are tracked to Three Pines, where Beauvoir awaits them. There are three intertwined plots going on here...the Francoeur scheme is the deadliest, and the Ouellet saga will remind readers of the real-life Dionne debacle of the 1940s. But it is Three Pines, with its quirky tenants, and numerous insights into trust and friendship. I do believe I liked the earlier books in this series more...but this one was okay. ( )

Oh, how I love the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. I just want to up and move to Three Pines. This one, How the Light Gets In has got to be my favorite so far. Comeuppance come!

I just found out that the narrator Ralph Cosham passed away back in 2014 and only got to narrate the first 10 books in the series. So I am saddened that the next book in the series, # 10, The Long Way Home, was his final embodiment of Armand Gamache. ( )

This one, while being somewhat difficult for me to willingly suspend disbelief, almost redeemed the series for me ( )

read this becuase of the edgar nomination. Wish I'd started with the ist in the series and read in order. Pretty sure I lost most of the emotional impact due to not being familiar with the carriers. A stand up mystery with likable characters and a satisfying resolution ( )

Always a delight to spend time with Inspector Gamache ( )