It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter. As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter...

"Hardly a day goes by when nine year old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. From alien invasions, to walking trees, to winged beasts in the woods, to dinosaurs spotted in the village of Three Pines, his tales are so extraordinary no one can possibly believe him -- iIncluding Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache, who now live in the little Quebec village. But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might...

It's the height of summer, and the wealthy Finney family have gathered at the Manoir Bellechasse to pay tribute to their late father. But as the temperature rises, old secrets and bitter rivalries begin to surface. When the heat wave boils over into a mighty storm, a dead body is left in its wake. Chief Inspector Gamache, a guest at the Bellechasse, finds himself with a building full of suspects. With the hotel locked down, the murderer is trapped....

When a peculiar letter arrives inviting Armand Gamache to an abandoned farmhouse, the former head of the Surete du Quebec discovers that a complete stranger has named him one of the executors of her will. Still on suspension, and frankly curious, Gamache accepts and soon learns that the other two executors are Myrna Landers, the bookseller from Three Pines, and a young builder.None of them had ever met the elderly woman.The will is so odd and includes...

"Christmas is approaching, and in Québec it's a time of dazzling snowfalls, bright lights, and gatherings with friends in front of blazing hearths. But shadows are falling on the usually festive season for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Most of his best agents have left the Homicide Department, his old friend and lieutenant Jean-Guy Beauvoir hasn't spoken to him in months, and hostile forces are lining up against him. When Gamache receives a message...

It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and surpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache hascome not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong. But violent death is inescapable, even in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society- where an obsessive historian's quest for the remains of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, ends in murder. Could a secret buried with Champlain...

"Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead." But now Lillian is dead in Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musee d'Art Contemporain in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Surete du Quebec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds a world of shading and nuance, shadow and light. And even when facts are...

"No one liked CC de Poitiers -- not her family, not her lover, not her neighbors in Three Pines. When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to investigate CC's sudden death on the day after Christmas, it seems like an impossible murder. How could she have been lectrocuted in the middle of a frozen lake in the midst of Three Pines annual curling match without anyone seeing a thing? In the beautiful but deadly Quebec winter, Gamache digs for secrets...

-- To defeat such an intricate, carefully constructed conspiracy, it will take the skills of a unique team: a passionate young FSO; a dedicated journalist; and a smart, determined, but as yet untested new secretary of state. State of Terror New York Times bestselling novelist.