A Rule Against Murder

“He brought news from other villages on his route, like a travelling minstrel in medieval times, with news of plague or war or flood, someplace else. But never here in this lovely and peaceful village. It always amused him to imagine that Three Pines, nestled among the mountains and surrounded by the Canadian forest, was disconnected from the outside world. It certainly felt that way. It was a relief.”

When the mailman comes to Three Pines, he always takes his time. His reaction to Three Pines is typical, for those who are familiar with the series—everyone who visits finds comfort and belonging there. Penny uses a minor character whose function is to connect disparate places to include her iconic village in the story, even though the bulk of the novel does not take place there.

“He’d come to the Manoir Bellechasse to turn that off, to relax and not look for the stain on the carpet, the knife in the bush, or the back. To stop noticing the malevolent inflections that rode into polite conversation on the backs of reasonable words. And the feelings flattened and folded and turned into something else, like emotional origami. Made to look pretty, but disguising something not at all attractive.”

When Gamache is suspicious of Elliot, Penny inserts tropes of the genre—the “stain,” “knife,” and “malevolent inflections”—to underscore the humor of Gamache laughing at himself in recognition of his own trope-upholding behavior. Those familiar with the Gamache series will understand what he is getting away from, but even if not, these tropes familiarize the reader with the detective work that Gamache usually undertakes.

“No wonder they weren’t always comfortable with the Québécois. If they felt they lost their children for the sake of a language. And without thanks. In fact, often just the opposite. There remained a lingering suspicion among the Québécois that the English were simply biding their time, waiting to enslave them again.”

This passage, as does the Burghers of Calais motif, examines the personal import of a wider historical context. Reine-Marie experiences a moment of empathy for Irene Finney and the Anglos whose lives changed when Quebec culture shifted drastically. Although Irene is snobbish and disparaging, Reine-Marie feels compassion for the other woman, and her empathy exhibits the qualities of detective work in that she attempts to understand the emotional states of those in the house. This is characteristic of Reine-Marie who, while not actively involved in the investigation, provides several interesting insights throughout the novel.

“From the dappled shade Armand Gamache watched. He knew he should be delighted to see their old friends, and he was. But looking down he noticed the hairs on his forearms sticking up, and felt a whispered cold breath. On this shimmering hot summer day, in this pristine and tranquil setting, things were not as they seemed.”

As Gamache has listened to the family talk about “Spot” and “Claire” over the past days, he has developed a negative impression of the couple. The fact that he knows Peter and Clara to be friendly, smart, creative people juxtaposed with what the family says about them causes him to realize how little he understands this family. This idea of things not being what they seem will drive Gamache’s investigation and eventually lead him to the solution. The “dappled shade” in this passage reflects this: Gamache stands in a mixture of sun and darkness, not without information but not yet seeing clearly.

“Peter went through life with his shields raised, repulsing attack by food or beverage, or people. Clara wondered whether there was a tiny Scottish voice in his head right now screaming, ‘Cap’n, the shields are down. I canna git them up.’”

Clara is considering Peter, who, usually immaculate, has food on his face. To her, knowing him well, this shows the depth of his agitation over being with his family. She uses the ship on Star Trek as a metaphor for his brain with the engineer, Scotty, in a panic over his defenselessness. Peter’s Family Armor, which partially depends on his immaculate composure, is threatened from the moment they arrive at the reunion.

“‘Not everyone makes the boat,’ said Bert Finney as the verchère left the dock.”

The Morrow family is going on a boat ride together, but when they are all in the boat, there is no room for Bert or Clara. Bert is talking about the literal boat here but also alluding to the fact that the Morrow family is closed to outsiders. Later, he tells Gamache: “What I didn’t say is that not everybody wants to make the boat” (178). The original quotation is therefore another example of an incomplete story in the novel that is eventually resolved: The simple addition of the words “wants to,” later, resolves Bert’s thoughts in the safety of Gamache’s presence.

“The statue was a deep undulating gray, and instead of holding his head high and proud he was bowed slightly. He looked off balance, as though about to step forward. But this Charles Morrow was not full of purpose and plans. This stooped, gray man hesitated on his pedestal.”

When the statue of Charles Morrow is revealed, everyone is shocked. The sculpture pushes back against his public persona as a successful businessman and shows the man beneath the surface. Throughout the novel, Penny returns to this idea of things not being what they seem. This pedestal is both literal and figurative: Charles Morrow has been held in regard, whether deserved or not, and his likeness must now endure the stone representation of this.

“Mr. Finney rose unsteadily to his full height. He reached for her hand, then pulled back. ‘Irene,’ he said. Again he reached out, and Gamache willed with all his might that Bert Finney could go the distance. But once again the old twig hand stopped short and finally fell to the side of his gray slacks.”

Gamache is hoping that Bert has the strength to reach out and connect with Irene, as she is in a moment of major pain after finding out about Julia’s death. The irony is that Bert would like nothing more than to comfort Irene, but he cannot touch her, because her neuralgia makes it too painful. This fact is only revealed toward the end of the novel, and Bert is the only person who knows the truth. This moment is an important part of the multiple representations of an unfulfilled desire for contact in the novel.

“Lacoste continued to stare at the dead woman. She was putting herself in Julia’s place. Turning. Seeing the statue do the impossible, the unthinkable. Seeing it fall toward her. And Agent Lacoste put her hands out in front of her, palms forward, elbows tucked into her body, ready to repel the attack. Turning away. It was instinctive. And yet Julia Martin had opened her arms.”

Agent Lacoste is the most empathetic of Gamache’s team. With each case they take on, she takes the time to connect with the victim through the crime scene and commit to finding their killer. In this case, Lacoste’s empathy is embodied as she physically practices Julia’s possible positions. Nevertheless, this small mystery remains a mystery and is only tentatively solved at the end of the book when Gamache ventures the thought that maybe Julia had instinctively reached out to embrace her father.

“‘Because whoever did this was already inside,’ said Madame Dubois. ‘What happened here last night isn’t allowed.’ It was such an extraordinary thing to say it actually stopped the ravenous Beauvoir from taking another bite of his roast beef on baguette. ‘You have a rule against murder?’ he asked. ‘I do. When my husband and I bought the Bellechasse we made a deal with the forest. Any death that wasn’t natural wasn’t allowed.’”

Manoir Bellechasse has a bloody history as a hunting lodge that was built on the destruction of the forest. When Madame Dubois and her husband bought the lodge, they banished the many taxidermized animals that decorated the walls to the attic. They also attempted to heal the lodge’s relationship with the forest by making, as Beauvoir puts it, “a rule against murder,” a phrase that is echoed in the title of the book (116). The title therefore connects to both the central plot of the story and also the historical contexts of deforestation and cultural relations in Canada.

“She should have known. The untalented brother was a brilliant painter. The mess of a sister was a virtuoso pianist. And Thomas? She’d always presumed he was as he seemed. A successful executive in Toronto. But this family was fueled by deceit. What was he, really?”

Clara is amazed to realize that, while the family considers Thomas to be the pianist in the family, his playing is lifeless next to Marianna’s. Her revelations reflect the patterns of Gamache’s denouement speech in which he repeats the phrase “and yet”; Clara offers already-assumed information (“untalented brother,” “mess of a sister”) and then turns it on its head. Even though she has known the family for years now, she is still surprised at how little their family personas match the people that they truly are. This underscores the theme of Prisoners of the Past, because the Morrow family clings to childhood perceptions of each other without considering how the others may have changed.

“‘It’s my little homage to my upbringing, Inspector. Bean is my child and my secret. I can’t tell you how good it feels in a family of know-it-alls to know something they don’t.’ Fucking Anglos, thought Beauvoir. If he tried that his mother’d thrash him with a rolling pin.”

Marianna is explaining to Beauvoir why she has kept Bean’s sex a secret from everyone, including her own family. By portraying this secret, Penny probes the question of why it is considered necessary to announce a child’s sex. Beauvoir’s response brings the French and English tensions back to the forefront, with his immediate aversion to the idea attached to her being “Anglo.”

“‘The men aren’t heroic. They’re resigned, frightened even.’ Beauvoir could imagine. ‘But wouldn’t that make them even more heroic?’ he asked. ‘I think so,’ said Gamache, turning back to Charles Morrow. Who wore clothing, who had no chains or ropes or noose. At least, not visible. But Armand Gamache knew Charles Morrow was bound as surely as those men. Roped and chained and tied to something. What was Charles Morrow seeing with those sorrowful eyes?”

In Charles Morrow’s sculpture, Gamache has seen a similarity to one of his favorite statues, The Burghers of Calais by Rodin. When considering Charles Morrow’s own personality, he can use the Rodin statue as a literal and metaphorical touchstone to try to better understand Morrow—and thus better understand the family. The statue shows another way in which the family are prisoners of the past—and the Burghers are a literal image of this theme—trapped in their old perceptions of their own father.

“Irene Finney finally knew what she believed. She believed Julia to be the kindest, most loving, most generous of her children. She believed Julia loved her too, and came back just to be with her. She believed had Julia not died, they’d have shared their lives. Loving mother and loving daughter. Finally, a child who wouldn’t disappoint and disappear. With each savage stroke of her make-up, Irene Finney filled the void with a child not loved then lost, but first lost, then loved.”

After Julia’s death, Irene has quickly rewritten the history of their relationship. Now that Julia is dead, she is safe to love because she will never disappoint her mother. The “savage stroke of her make-up” grotesquely imitates the touch that each of her children craved from her. This is another example of the family’s willingness to manipulate their history in order to satisfy their own needs.

“Was that the burden Gamache had seen etched in that stone face? Not sacrifice, but fear? Was Charles Morrow afraid his own children would betray him? Had he created the very thing he was so afraid of? Unhappy, unloving, ungrateful children? Children capable of stealing from their father, and killing each other?”

Peter has told Gamache that his father had been wary of his children because of something his own father had told him—that in a wealthy family, the third generation will squander the money and ruin the family. The fact that Gamache attempts to decipher the emotional state of stone is part of the pattern of partial clues and unfinished stories that amass in the whodunit genre.

“Bean was the first Morrow he’d seen with a look of joy, of delight, of rapture. Gamache recognized it because he felt those things himself, every day. But he hadn’t expected to find them here, in the middle of the forest, in a Morrow. And certainly not from this child, marginalized, excluded, mocked. Named for a vegetable, asexual and rooted. Bean seemed destined for disaster. A puppy beside a highway. But this child who couldn’t jump could do something much more important. Bean could be transported.”

Gamache has risen early to see why Bean has set alarm clocks for seven o’clock in the morning, a pattern that suggests adult responsibility for a child in this family. He finds the child in the meadow near the lodge’s beehives, dancing to music on their iPod. Earlier, Peter had told Gamache that Bean couldn’t jump—an ironic characterization given the existence of the jumping bean, another indication that things are not as they seem—and Gamache has worried about the effect that living with the Morrow family would have on a child. His triplet lists of characteristics—“marginalized, excluded, mocked” and “vegetable, asexual and rooted” exemplify his detective tendencies to observe and understand.

“The Morrows could be counted on to choose the right fork and the wrong word. Their comments were always casual. And when confronted, they’d look hurt, offended, perplexed. How often had Clara apologized for being insulted? And what Mrs. Morrow had just said about Gamache’s father was about as insulting as Clara had ever heard her.”

Irene has just told her family the story of Honoré Gamache and finished by saying that he was a coward, in tones loud enough for Gamache to hear. Clara is reflecting on the duplicitous nature of the family. Penny pairs moral opposites—“right” and “wrong”—next to the “fork” and the “word” to evoke bathos: the fork, a metonym for manners, appears especially trivial next to the significant matter of the “word,” a metonym for all the family’s interactions.

“Instead he clamped his mouth shut and felt the bitterness and bile burn in his throat and chest. He fought to shove the rage back in, stuffing it down there with anger and jealousy and fear and hate, hate, hate. But Pandora’s box wouldn’t be shut. Not again. The demons had already escaped and were swirling around the Manoir Bellechasse, feeding and growing, and killing.”

The story of Pandora’s box returns to Peter now, in a high-pressure situation with his siblings. The repetition of the monosyllabic word “hate” mimics the implied repetition of the action of “stuffing” his rage in a box. His family armor has been stripped away and his reaction, in the next chapter, is to retaliate by throwing Thomas’s cufflinks in the lake.

“Peter was wan and strained, his clothes disheveled and his hair awry. Clara was immaculate, buttoned-down and impeccable. Reine-Marie didn’t know which was more disconcerting.”

In their normal life, Peter is impeccably dressed, while Clara tends to be messy and disheveled. Reine-Marie, who knows them in this context, is shocked to find that they seem to have switched personalities. This is a visible, concrete indication of how stressful this reunion is for both of them. The fact that she closely observes material signs reinforces the idea that she, too, exhibits detective work in the novel.

“His eyes looked away from the lake and returned to the elderly woman in front of him, who’d just spewed her hurt all over him. He looked at her with kindness. Not because he knew it would confuse or anger her further, but because he knew he’d had time to absorb his loss. And hers was fresh.”

Irene Finney has just been stunningly cruel to Gamache, disparaging his father again. Gamache’s response is characteristic—he is able to look beyond his own emotional reaction to her statement and see the pain behind it. This ability to suspend his own emotions and consider the emotions behind others’ actions is a typical element of the characterization of a detective in the whodunit genre since it allows readers to do the same and observe clues throughout the text.

“Beauvoir saw the horrific scene. The murderer standing like a lightning rod in the storm, holding the terrified child. But the most frightening was the chief, who was looking at him with eyes so grave. Frightened, his fate sealed, and knowing it. A Burgher of Calais. Gamache lifted his hand and gave Beauvoir the signal to withdraw.”

Beauvoir has come out onto the roof, where Gamache is facing Pierre, who is holding Bean hostage. The simile of the “lightning rod in the storm” connects this scene with the storm earlier in the book, just before which the murder took place. When he sees the expression on Gamache’s face, Beauvoir connects it to The Burghers of Calais and by doing so recalls the statue of Charles Morrow as well.

“Hitting the roof he scrambled for purchase as they started skidding down the slick steep side. His left hand shot up and gripped the very top of the roof, where skilled hands had battered and connected the now tarnished copper more than a hundred years earlier. And had placed a ridge along the peak of the roof. For no reason.”

The menacing danger in this passage is echoed by the hissing alliteration of “slick steep side.” As Gamache reaches out to save Bean, he uses the copper peak of the roof to catch them. This moment connects back to the Prologue and the moment of foreshadowing in which the worker felt that “[s]omething dreadful was going to happen on that very spot” (1). By making this connection, Penny gives the satisfying sense, at the end of the novel, that the plot has come full circle.

“I knew then that this was a family at odds with reality, their perception skewed. What purpose did it serve?”

Gamache is explaining how he discovered the killer in his denouement speech. His words highlight the effectiveness of third-person narration in the novel: Gamache reveals, at the end, what he “knew then,” rather than his every thought being delivered to the reader via first person earlier in the novel.