#4 of Penny's Gamache series is set around Canada day (July) at the Manoir Bellechasse - a fictional fancy old log hotel/lodge going back to the robber barons when the Canada backcountry was first being logged. The Gamaches go there for their 35th wedding anniversary on Canada day. Like an Agatha Christie tale, there is a limited number of suspects, given the isolated location, when there's a murder, which seems impossible to have performed.
Except for a brief detour to Three Pines for their anniversary and Canada clogging celebration, the story is set at the Manoir. It focuses on Peter morrows dysfunctional family (including the murder victim), as well as giving us some background about Armand's dad, Honore - who got in trouble with Canadians for being a pacifist and speaking out against Canada entering WWII, but who later changed his mind when he went with the Red Cross to free the prisoners from Bergen-Belsen.
I'm not sure why the book is titled A Rule Against Murder. I didn't see how it fit the storyline. Reading some of the other reviews, I learned that the UK title is The Murder Stone, which I find much more relevant. I wonder why the US didn't like the UK title...?
Quotes I liked from the book:
"Wondered whether what people did in a crisis was, in fact, their real selves. Stripped of artifice and social training. It was easy enough to be decent when all was going your way. It was another matter to be decent when all hell was breaking loose."
"The summer sun was just up and wandering in the lace-curtained windows. Nothing stirred, except a loon calling across the lake."
"The two walked across the lawn, their feet making a path through the light morning dew. The world was waking up, hungry. Chipmunks raced and yipped under the trees, birds hopped and called and insects buzzed quietly in the background. Elliot placed the tray on the arm of the second Adirondack chair, poured a delicate bone china cup of coffee and turned to leave. “There is one thing I’ve wanted to ask you.” Did the lithe back tighten in the trim white jacket? Elliot paused for a moment then turned back, an expectant smile on his handsome face."
“You’re very like your father, you know.” The words went out into the world and joined the golden sunshine streaming through the gathering clouds and onto the water and the dock and warming their faces. The words joined the glittering waves and the bobbing insects and butterflies and birds and shimmering leaves. Armand Gamache closed his eyes and walked deep into the shadows, deep into the longhouse where all his experiences and memories lived, where everyone he’d ever met and everything he’d ever done or thought or said waited. He walked right to the very back and there he found a room, closed but not locked. A room he’d never dared enter."
"...a stench, not darkness, not a moan of a terrible threat. But something much more frightening. Light glowed from under that door. Inside were his parents, he knew. Where young Armand had placed them. To be safe and sound. And perfect. Away from the accusations, the taunts, the knowing smiles. All Armand’s life Honoré had lived in light. Unchallenged."
“She became my grandmother, and raised me after my parents died. She taught me that life goes on, and that I had a choice. To lament what I no longer had or be grateful for what remained. I was fortunate to have a role model that I couldn’t squirm my way around. After all, how do you argue with the survivor of a death camp?”
“We’re all blessed and we’re all blighted, Chief Inspector,” said Finney. “Every day each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?”