A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny (2006)

The second in the Three Pines mysteries with Inspector Armand Gamache was as good as the first. I love this small town with caring, loving people, but they each have their secrets too. This time it is CC de Poitiers who dies, electrocuted at the  town curling match on the lake. She had recently purchased the Hadley place, full of negative energy from the first mystery solved by Gamache. She is the author of a mixed spirituality book, appears well off, has a colorless husband Richard and an overweight daughter. We meet many of the people from the first book - Clara and Peter, a couple of artists, the gay couple that owns the bistro and rooming house, three elderly women who are good friends, and Ruth, the grumpy old lady, who writes amazing poetry about life and death. Plus there is the death of a seemingly unconnected homeless woman in Montreal.

Gamache is a caring inspector with an understanding of people, that helps him solve cases. His side-kick is less understanding, but is learning. There is a local detective that seems to be doing a good job, but the unsympathetic detective Nicole from the last book reappears, assigned by Gamache's superiors. She claims to have changed, but is somehow connected with the Arno case, for which some would like to see Gamache pay. We get a bit more insight into her life, but this storyline is to be continued.

Another interesting factor in this book is the deep winter cold and snow in this small Canadian town, someplace south of Montreal. I was trying to remember the coldest I have been - the cross-country ski/meditation retreat in Vermont one winter, where it got to be -20, and one winter down in Logan, Ohio, where I was out cutting down my Christmas tree in way below 0 temperatures. These people seemed well prepared for the deep winter.