The Brutal Telling

A dead body is found in Olivier’s bistro. Olivier sees that the man is the Hermit, but says he doesn’t recognize him. Sûreté Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to Three Pines to investigate the murder. When Gamache arrives at the scene, agent Isabelle Lacoste informs him and agent Jean Guy Beauvoir of what they know so far. The man was killed with a blow to the back of his head. The detectives haven’t found any sign of a murder weapon, or identified the victim. Neither the body nor the room show signs of a struggle. Gamache already has three suspects in mind.

The coroner, Dr. Harris, determines that the man died between midnight and five in the morning. The blow to his head is so intense that Gamache suspects anger motivated the murder. Myrna says a townsperson named Roar Parra told local citizens “Old Mundin” and “The Wife” that he saw a stranger in the woods; she doesn’t know Old Mundin’s and The Wife’s real names. Olivier’s partner, Gabri, tells Gamache that the night before, the bistro was busy for Labor Day Weekend. After closing, Old Mundin, who repairs furniture, dropped off Olivier’s order and picked up more repairs. Gamache finds it strange that Old Mundin does this work at midnight. Havoc Parra would have been the one to lock the bistro.

Myrna meets with her artist friends Clara and Peter Morrow, a married couple. They discuss the murder and note Inspector Gamache has been called to Three Pines for a murder investigation before. Three Pines has so little crime that they don’t even have their own police department.

Ruth Zardo, the local poet and volunteer firefighter, arrives at Jean Guy and Gamache’s makeshift inspection room. Jean Guy is easily annoyed by Ruth, but they need to use her fire-department space for the investigation. Meanwhile, Gamache is with Olivier and Gabri at the bistro. He notes that Olivier looks blank, and “[a] blank face to the Chief Inspector meant a frantic mind” (Page 32). Olivier insists he doesn’t recognize the victim. He and Gabri can’t come up with a reason why someone would have been murdered in their bistro. Gamache can tell Olivier is lying about something.

Gamache and Jean Guy discuss their first impressions of the case. When Olivier first arrived at the murder scene after Myrna’s phone call, he had lit two fires in the fireplaces of the bistro, which Gamache finds strange as a first reaction. Dr. Harris thinks the murder weapon was a metal rod, so they take Olivier’s fireplace pokers for testing.

Isabelle questions the staff on duty at the bistro on the night of the murder. None of them noted anything suspicious. Isabelle’s last stop is to question Havoc Parra at his parents’ house. He tells Isabelle the same story as the other staff, and is certain he locked the door on his way out. His father, Roar, thought he saw a stranger in the woods a couple of times, but is uncertain. Isabelle wonders about Roar’s past.

Dr. Harris has new information about the victim: While he looks dirty, he’s actually clean and healthy. Gamache initially identified the man as in his 70s, but given the composition of his teeth and body, Dr. Harris places the man in his 50s. Dr. Harris no longer thinks the man was unhoused. A young officer offers to help. Gamache has a tight-knit homicide team, who all find this officer ridiculous. However, Gamache has a history of bringing in new officers or officers that others find irresponsible or unworthy. He admires the young agent’s tenacity and brings him in. The young agent introduces himself as Paul Morin.

Isabelle suggests the victim purposefully outfitted himself with odd clothes. Jean Guy proposes it’s strange that the murderer left the body in the bistro. The murderer could have hidden the body in the woods but instead left it in the bistro to be found.

Olivier is worried. He worked hard to make his bistro the thriving business it is, but now wonders if anyone will want to dine at the site of a murder. He’s also worried that someone will find out that he knew the victim—the Hermit. Olivier, Gabri, and Ruth attend dinner at Clara and Peter’s house with Myrna. Ruth is annoyed to see that Clara and Peter have invited Gamache, Jean Guy, and Isabelle as well.

Gamache asks Clara if she, like Roar Parra, has seen any strangers about. It turns out there is a new family in the area. The old Hadley house has a terrible history, and Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, helped the villagers of Three Pines renovate the house in the hopes that someone would buy it and end its curse. Someone bought the house but is still doing renovations; Roar has been hired to help clean the grounds. Suddenly, Ruth proposes that someone is trying to ruin Olivier by leaving the dead body in his bistro.

Gamache asks the dinner guests about the old Hadley house. Peter says he met the new owners, a couple named Marc and Dominique Gilbert, who also live with Marc’s mother. The Gilberts plan to open a luxury inn and spa at the Hadley house, a future business that has already started poaching employees from Olivier’s bistro. Clara is an artist, so Gamache stops his questioning and tours Clara’s paintings in the house.

The dinner party ends, and the three detectives head out. They see Myrna turn on the light in her apartment to drink. This reminds Gamache of something important—someone would have had to turn on the lights in the bistro for the murder, and the lights would have been noticeable. If the murderer had no need for lights, it would mean they knew the inside of the bistro well enough.

Gamache instructs Jean Guy and Isabelle to look into the possibility that someone has a grudge against Olivier. He also wants background checks done on Olivier and the Parra family. Meanwhile, he goes to the old Hadley house. Gamache meets Carole Gilbert, Marc’s mother. He’s impressed with what they’ve done with the house. He notes that from the hilltop on which the Hadley house sits, he can see all of Three Pines.

New recruit Paul tells Isabelle that he tried to understand the murder better by hitting a cantaloupe with a hammer in the dark. The experiment was not only messy but extremely difficult to accomplish in one shot. Isabelle informs Paul of Gamache’s theory about someone retaliating against Olivier. Paul suggests that the murderer could be Olivier himself; however, it seems unlikely that Olivier would commit murder and leave the body in his own bistro. Paul points out that he would never murder someone out of anger, but Isabelle teaches him a valuable first lesson: One shouldn’t judge a crime by one’s own life.

Marc and Dominique give Gamache a tour of their house. He revisits the bedroom that once belonged to Timmer Hadley, where two murders occurred that he himself investigated. He notes the tasteful furniture in the house and asks the Gilberts if they already had the furniture or if they had to buy anything from Olivier. The couple bought a rug and two chairs from Olivier. They were going to buy more but discovered that he doubled his prices for them. They canceled the transaction, which caused tension between them. Gamache asks if the couple offered employment to Olivier’s employees. Marc says Olivier barely pays his staff, so some eagerly agreed to work for the Gilberts instead.

Gamache asks Marc and Dominique why they chose to move to Three Pines. Dominique says they felt burned out by their high-pressure jobs in Montreal and wanted a quiet place to start a new life in. When Gamache asks if they’ve seen any “vagrants” around, they refute this. When he asks if they were able to see anything in the bistro from their vantage point on the night of the murder, they claim they were in their bedrooms in the back of the house. Isabelle arrives and interrupts the questioning with urgent information: The coroner revealed that the victim wasn’t killed in the bistro.

Myrna is concerned about the bereft Olivier, who has a reputation for being kind and generous. She assures Olivier that he is beloved in Three Pines, no matter Gamache’s suspicions. Privately, Olivier is worried that if Three Pines knew the truth about him, they wouldn’t love him so much.

Dr. Harris tells Gamache’s team that because there was little blood in the bistro, the victim was likely killed elsewhere and then moved. She found paraffin, a wax typically used for candles, within the head wound. On the back of the victim’s clothes, Dr. Harris also found varathane, which is used to seal wood in woodworking jobs. Jean Guy proposes that the victim was a survivalist, a man who lived in the woods because he wanted to. Dr. Harris finds it odd that the blow to the head was a single blow and sufficient to kill the victim. The murderer must have been methodical in the killing.

Dominique’s horses arrive, and the accompanying veterinarian tells her that it will be difficult to ride these horses due to their history of abuse. He points out that one horse, named Marc like Dominique’s husband, has been badly abused and will need committed care to improve.

Jean Guy organizes a massive police search of every home and business in Three Pines. They are looking for the scene of the murder, but no new information is gleaned. Olivier’s fireplace pokers—suspected murder weapons—come back clean from laboratory testing. Gamache goes to the Brume County Fair, looking for Old Mundin. He meets Old Mundin’s six-year-old son, Charles, who has Down syndrome. Peter is outraged by the police search and feels his rights have been violated. Gamache reminds him that it’s the murderer who caused these problems, not the police. He visits Old Mundin’s booth, where he and his wife sell handmade furniture, and asks if they use varathane or paraffin—which they laugh off, saying they use paraffin. He requests to see Old Mundin’s workshop.

Old Mundin brings Charles on the drive to his workshop. He admits that some people don’t like Olivier because they think he’s unfair with his prices. Gamache asks if anyone has been truly angry at Olivier in the past. Old Mundin concedes that Old Madame Poirier’s children had been livid with Olivier because when she moved to a nursing home, he bought her furniture at an unfair price.

Gamache is impressed by Old Mundin’s workshop, as Old Mundin is clearly passionate about the wood in Quebec. Old Mundin wonders aloud about someone potentially placing the victim in the bistro.