Recommendations based on "Lock No. 1"

A New York Times Notable Crime Book and Favorite Cozy for 2011A Publishers Weekly Best Mystery/Thriller books for 2011With A Trick of the Light, Louise Penny takes us back to the deceptively peaceful village of Three Pines in this brilliant novel in her award-winning, New York Times bestselling series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache."Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead."But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart.And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light."Penny has been compared to Agatha Christie [but] it sells her short. Her characters are too rich, her grasp of nuance and human psychology too firm...." --Booklist (starred review)

'Electrifying drama ... Gamache is a fascinatingly complex protagonist' THE TIMES 'Nobody does evil quite as scarily as Louise Penny' ANN CLEEVES 'This is crime writing of the highest order' DAILY MAIL Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in the small village of Three Pines in Quebec. Someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. When he finally answers the call, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning. That's only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin THE GREY WOLF. At first they seem small - a missing coat, a note for Gamache reading "this might interest you", a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list - but then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching. A threat unlike anything they've seen before. PRAISE FOR LOUISE PENNY AND THE CHIEF INSPECTOR GAMACHE SERIES: 'Penny delves into the nature of evil, sensitively exploring the impact of the dreadful events she describes while bringing a warmth and humanity to her disparate cast of characters that, unusually for a crime novel, leaves you feeling better about the world once you've finished' BOOK OF THE MONTH, OBSERVER 'Louise Penny is one of the greatest crime writers of our times' DENISE MINA 'No one does atmospheric quite like Louise Penny' ELLY GRIFFITHS

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERPARADE MAGAZINE – ONE OF FALL'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKSAARP'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF FALLCRIMEREADS – ONE OF THE BEST TRADITIONAL MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR GLOBE AND MAIL - TOP 100 BOOKS OF THE YEARCHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF THE YEARKIRKUS REVIEWS - ONE OF THE BEST MYSTERIES/THRILLERS OF THE YEARLIBRARY JOURNAL - ONE OF THE BEST CRIME FICTION BOOKS OF THE YEARThe 16th novel by #1 bestselling author Louise Penny finds Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Quebec investigating a sinister plot in the City of LightOn their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand’s godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Gamache knows is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man’s life. When a strange key is found in Stephen’s possession it sends Armand, his wife Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the Sûreté, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, from the top of the Tour d’Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives, from luxury hotels to odd, coded, works of art. It sends them deep into the secrets Armand’s godfather has kept for decades. A gruesome discovery in Stephen’s Paris apartment makes it clear the secrets are more rancid, the danger far greater and more imminent, than they realized. Soon the whole family is caught up in a web of lies and deceit. In order to find the truth, Gamache will have to decide whether he can trust his friends, his colleagues, his instincts, his own past. His own family.For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide.