The Beautiful Mystery

Gamache, the protagonist of Penny’s 18-book series, heads the homicide division of the Sûreté du Québec, the province’s police force. He has a strong sense of duty and ethics, and is devoted to the welfare of his subordinates, especially his longtime right-hand man, Beauvoir. Gamache is in his mid-50s, with a pronounced “scar at his left temple” (17)—an injury from a botched raid to rescue a hostage that resulted in the deaths of several police officers and the near-fatal wounds of Gamache and Beauvoir. This trauma influences much of Gamache’s behavior in The Beautiful Mystery.

Gamache is an astute, compassionate observer who conducts interrogations patiently, knowing how to read a suspect and manipulate the emotional tenor of a room. Committed to doing the right thing, Gamache refuses “to lose his soul in the process” (270) of his work. Fiercely loyal to family and friends, Gamache is devoted to his wife Reine-Marie and his daughter Annie.

In the previous novel in the series, Gamache had a lot in common with the zealots at the heart of the novel’s mystery plot—obsessed with completing the rescue operation, he left Beauvoir wounded in order to pursue his job. In that disaster’s aftermath, Gamache learns not to value his job’s mission over the lives of his close associates.