This time we have an imported murder victim, who totally deserves to be made dead, an excellent choice. No further inroads are made on the population of the village in this one. Actually, a villager and another person die in the course of things, but it could have been worse.
Again, we have causal madness and general grimness. We have a potentially fatal situation for Inspector Gamache and his faithful sidekick, Beauvoir. A new twist is that a double agent has been placed on Gamache's team to help destroy him - for some long past and somewhat incomprehensible sin against the Surete. This story line is left unresolved as a hook.
There is something odd about the way that Penny uses dogs in her stories. Unravelling that will probably require reading more of these books - and possibly reviewing a couple of things from the first books. It is interesting that immediately after an unnecessary discussion of how people put down their aging and infirm pets there is a conversation between the Superintendent in Montreal and his agent on Gamache's team. It was all vaguely reminiscent of the foreshadowing of the ending of Of Mice and Men in the scene where they shoot Candy's dog. Less subtle, but still suggestive.
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