Louise Penny does it again creating an amazing Canadian murder mystery cozy. I love her writing style that goes deep into the heart of human nature with a prose that is poetic and lyric. This mystery is fraught with psychological motivations and a family in strife with each other with great misunderstandings and petty grievances down the years. This is a study of human emotions and what makes a person's emotions get out of check to have the capacity to lash out in evil when not "guarding one's heart." Gamache at one point speaks gravely to Peter about this very thing: "Be careful, Peter. You have a good spirit, but even good spirits stumble, and sometimes they fall. And sometimes they don't get up." All of her books in essence play on this theme to the point that you realize that we are all human and capable of great things and not so great things — all of us.