Plot summary
Artist Clara Morrow has a solo show, her first, at the modern art museum in Montréal. There is a vernissage at the museum the night before the public opening followed by a party organized by her husband Peter at their home in Three Pines. The next morning Peter and neighbor Olivier, carrying the newspapers with reviews of her solo show, see a woman dressed for a party lying dead in the back garden. They call the police. The murder is investigated by Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his crew of investigators.
As each party had a long guest list, there are many possible suspects. No one saw the woman at either party, and the Morrows do not recognize her. The police find her car nearby and learn her name. She is Lillian Dyson, whom Clara knew over twenty years earlier in art college, a best friend who ended their friendship. She does not look the same.
Police learn that Lillian Dyson had been in New York City for years and had recently returned to Montréal. She had joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and had a sponsor. Both Lillian and her sponsor Suzanne were artists who do not enjoy the success Clara now has. Lillian had been an art critic for a local newspaper soon after art college; she wrote scathing, painful reviews of the work of at least two women back then, Clara and Suzanne, making enemies in the art world of Quebec. Suzanne had been destroyed by the cruel words, worked as a waitress, and after her most painful time, joined AA. With so many years in AA, Suzanne had developed the strength to forgive Lillian and did so.
Lillian was painting again, keeping her works in her small apartment. When Gamache sees the paintings, he thinks they are good work, though quite different from Clara’s paintings in style. Gamache shows photos of Lillian’s paintings to Thérèse Brunel for her assessment of their quality. The two then talk of the possibility of the violent event of six months earlier as possibly being an in-house set up.
Suzanne comes to Three Pines after Gamache finds her at an AA meeting, and she fills in Lillian’s story. At that AA meeting, Gamache sees an important judge in attendance. He became alcoholic after his young granddaughter was killed by a drunk driver. The judge joined AA when that guilty driver left prison and came for forgiveness to the judge’s home.
A side plot has Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir getting hooked on pain killers and steadily denying it, as he relives the past violent scene by watching a video made from police body cameras. He was shot in that earlier case and is not dealing with the physical or emotional effects of such violence well. Gamache orders him to continue supportive treatment at the end of the novel.
Sifting the evidence collected by Agent Lacoste, it becomes clear to Gamache that one of the three art dealers, each seeking to represent Clara, is the murderer. Denis Fortin feels wronged by Clara and by Lillian. Each might have been the hot new artist to save his faltering business. He has only himself to blame.
Fortin sees a chance to get back at both by giving Lillian directions to Clara’s home for the night of the party. Lillian jumps ahead in the 12-step program, to the ninth step of asking forgiveness, long before she has the strength for the task, finding those she wronged, including Fortin. She had written a mean review of Fortin’s art works, turning him from artist to art dealer in her time as art critic. She eagerly accepts his invitation to meet Clara at her party, as Clara is on Lillian’s list of people she wants to ask forgiveness.
Lillian approaches the home from the back; her supposed friend meets her and kills her in the garden. Fortin’s notion is that this murder happening at her home will ruin Clara’s reputation. Fortin is charged with murder.
Clara and Peter are married over 20 years. Peter has trouble accepting his wife’s sudden success. They talk. At the end of the story they agree to part for one year, to meet in Three Pines for dinner to see what comes next.
