No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her eleven-year-old daughter, and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines, a tiny village south of Montreal. That is the challenge for inspector Armand Gamache of the Quebec police, sent from his office in Montreal to investigate CC's murder. Gamache's specialty is the complicated, often hidden relationships that hold together any small town. The detective must employ all his gifts to find the calculating killer lurking within Three Pines.