The Beautiful Mystery

The novel is written in the third person omniscient, a style of narration that allows the readers to see into the minds of many characters. These varying points of view in give the characters depth; in the mystery genre, they are also useful for revealing information to the reader.

Some shifts in perspective give readers more information than characters have. The novel opens with the abbot’s tension on the morning of the murder, making the reader familiar with the fault lines in the monastery between the abbot and the prior even before the investigation starts. Knowing that there are competing groups of monks allows readers to draw their own conclusions from Gamache’s first encounters with these potentially enigmatic figures.

Point of view allows even minor characters like local policeman Captain Charbonneau to have a narrative function. In this case, Charbonneau’s thoughts give readers a window into Gamache’s special status as an admired but also vulnerable member of the police force, as Charbonneau imagines telling Gamache, “I do know something you should hear.