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 ( )

Book 9 KIRKUS REVIEWChief Inspector Armand Gamache of the S?ret? du Qu?bec is pushed toward retirement.It?s a great relief for Inspector Gamache to get out of the office and head for Three Pines to help therapist-turned-bookseller Myrna find out why her friend Constance Pineault didn?t turn up for Christmas. Except for Isabelle Lacoste, Gamache?s staff has been gutted by Chief Superintendent Francoeur. Gamache?s decisions have been mostly ignored and bets placed on how soon he?ll admit redundancy and retire. Even worse, a recent tragedy (The Beautiful Mystery, 2012, etc.) has led his second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, to transfer out of Gamache?s department, fall sway to prescription drugs and hold his former boss in contempt. En route to Three Pines, Gamache happens upon a fatality at the Champlain Bridge and agrees to handle the details. But this case takes a back seat to the disappearance of Constance when she turns up dead in her home. Myrna confides Constance?s secret: As the last surviving Ouellet quintuplet, she?d spent her adult years craving privacy after the national publicity surrounding the birth of the five sisters had turned them into daily newspaper fodder. Why would anyone want to murder this reclusive woman of 79? The answer is developed through clues worthy of Agatha Christie that Gamache interprets while dealing with the dismemberment of his homicide department by Francoeur, who?s been plotting a major insult to Canadian government for 30 years. Matters come to a head when Gamache and the one S?ret? chief still loyal to him and her husband, a computer whiz, are tracked to Three Pines, where Beauvoir awaits, gun in hand.Of the three intertwined plots, the Francoeur scheme is the deadliest, and the Ouellet saga will remind readers of the real-life Dionne family debacle of the 1940s. But it?s Three Pines, with its quirky tenants, resident duck and luminous insights into trust and friendship, that will hook readers and keep them hooked.Pub Date: Aug. 27th, 2013ISBN: 978-0-312-65547-1Page count: 416ppPublisher: MinotaurReview Posted Online: March 31st, 2013Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15th, 2013