The Cruelest Month

At Clara and Peter’s dinner party that night, Gamache tells Jeanne that the high school she claims to have attended burned down 20 years ago. She says it is a coincidence, but he is suspicious. During dinner they make small talk about the season and the weather, and they discuss Jeanne’s Wiccan beliefs. Talk turns to Hazel, who was invited but declined. Ruth is there despite having to leave the ducklings at home, and they talk about the smaller one, who isn’t as healthy. Ruth helped the duckling crack open its shell, and Gabri shares an anecdote about the emperor moth: If it doesn’t have to fight its way out of its cocoon, it will not survive in the world. Ruth faces the realization that by helping the duckling out of its shell, she has weakened it.

Neither Beauvoir nor Gamache can sleep that night, and neither can Jeanne. They sit in the bed-and-breakfast’s kitchen, look over the books they’ve collected, and talk about magic. Beauvoir claims not to believe, but Gamache brings up his personal superstitions. Beauvoir, disgruntled, goes back to bed, but Jeanne and Gamache continue to talk. She tells him about the message that had been written on her brochure, which said, “Where lay lines meet—Easter special” (256). She explains the significance of ley lines to Wicca and points out that whoever wrote the message spelled it wrong. Gamache realizes someone deliberately brought Jeanne to Three Pines that weekend.

Ruth is devastated to realize that she weakened the duckling, and that night, it dies. Clara, meanwhile, has a breakthrough on her painting. She is grateful to Peter for suggesting the dinner party.

Beauvoir believes that Sophie is guilty and will confess once they get the report on the ephedra they found in her bedroom. Although everything seems to add up, Gamache is not sure. They discuss a book that Myrna had given them, The Dictionary of Magical Places, because Gamache had found an image of the red hand that was also on the book he found in the Hadley house. He also points out that the caves where the red hand was found were called Chauvet.

When they go to the bistro, Gabri shows them the most recent newspaper and turns the radio on. Gamache’s children are now both being investigated on false charges. Gamache is angry that Brébeuf has not seemed to help with the press. He decides to call Brébeuf and asks him to arrange a meeting of the senior Sûreté council.

The investigation seems to confirm Sophie as the killer, but Hazel, distraught, comes to the incident room to plead for them not to accuse her. Gamache agrees to hold off for the moment, and they call Clara, who takes Hazel home with her. While Hazel is sleeping, Clara continues to paint.

Nichol returns from Queens and reports that Sophie is well-liked and never sick at school, in contrast to how she is when she is at home. When they receive the report on the ephedra pills, they discover that Sophie’s pills are not the same as those that killed Madeleine. Gamache realizes that Odile and Gilles carry ma huang in their shop, which is the Chinese name for ephedra. He takes a sample and sends it for analysis.

Gamache meets with all of the upper-level officers of the Sûreté, including Brébeuf and Francoeur. He asks them to stop the attacks in the news, but they deny planting the stories. He then asks them to accept his resignation. Francoeur verbally attacks him, and they argue, with Francoeur trying to coerce Gamache into a physical confrontation. As Gamache is leaving, Brébeuf repeats something that only Lemieux knew, and Gamache realizes that Brébeuf has betrayed him.    

After he leaves the Sûreté, Gamache goes to Madeleine’s old high school to get an alumni list. When he returns to Three Pines, he tells Beauvoir that he knows who killed Madeleine. They arrange for everyone involved in the case to meet that night at the Hadley house.

Gamache summons everyone to the Hadley house so that he can reveal the murderer. He summarizes his approach to the investigation and what he discovered. He works his way through the various suspects, beginning with Sophie, whose love of Madeleine had turned to hate when she discovered Madeleine’s relationship with Monsieur Béliveau. He builds a convincing case against her, but then points out that everything he said also applies to Hazel. In addition, he reveals that Hazel had imagined a relationship between herself and Monsieur Béliveau until Madeleine stole his affection.

Gamache then moves on to his next suspects: Gilles, who could have killed her out of jealousy, and who had access to ephedra through his shop, and Odile, who could have just as easily gotten the ephedra and knew about Gilles’s love for Madeleine. He continues to Jeanne Chauvet, pointing out that the villagers had all wanted him to blame the crime on her. He shows them the brochure that was mailed in order to lure her to Three Pines.

He also reveals that Jeanne’s real name is Joan Cummings and that she went to high school with Madeleine and Hazel. She pursued a friendship with Madeleine in school but was ignored. When she came to Three Pines, she felt immediate belonging but, when she discovered Madeleine there, feared that the same thing would happen again. However, he tells them all, Jeanne is not Madeleine’s killer.

Lemieux comes to the room, and Gamache leaves with him. Michel Brébeuf is waiting in another room, and Gamache confronts him with his betrayal. Lemieux then shows his true self, a man only interested in promotion and power. Gamache asks why Brébeuf had attacked his children, one of whom is Brébeuf’s godchild. Brébeuf replies that it was jealousy—he achieved more than Gamache ever had, and yet Gamache was happier.

Brébeuf wants Gamache to resign, but Lemieux says it is not enough. He tries to give Brébeuf his gun to kill Gamache and then aims the gun himself, but Beauvoir comes into the room and draws his own gun on Lemieux. While this is going on, Nichol has been in the shadows, poised to intervene, but only Gamache has seen her. When Lemieux threatens to shoot, Beauvoir drops his gun, but Lemieux fires at Gamache anyway.

Just as Lemieux fires, Nichol throws a rock at him. Gamache, Lemieux, and Beauvoir are on the floor, in the dark, trying to find the gun. Nichol steps out of the shadows and points her own gun at Lemieux, who, thinking that she works for Brébeuf, tells the other man to call her off, then encourages her to shoot Gamache. Gamache reveals that Nichol is working for him, purposely acting out to distract Lemieux so that Gamache could observe him. Gamache, however, had thought he was working for Francoeur and was honestly surprised by Brébeuf’s betrayal.

Gamache leaves Lemieux and Brébeuf in the custody of Beauvoir and Nichol and returns to the villagers, who are still in the séance room. He traces Hazel’s relationship with Madeleine, who had always been in the spotlight when they were in school. After graduation, they drifted apart, and Hazel built a home in Three Pines with her daughter and a community of friends. Yet she was always friends with those who needed her and on whom she could look down. When they reconnected, Madeleine was sick, so Hazel accepted her, but once she got better, her feelings of being jealous and second best returned. The breaking point came when Sophie had come home from school and kissed Madeleine first.

Hazel slipped ephedra into the casserole she made for the first séance, which she did not attend. When the villagers protest that she could have killed them, she reveals that she knew Madeleine had a heart condition, which was necessary for the ephedra to kill her. Hazel had tried again the next séance and succeeded.

After the case is solved, Gamache is depressed over the loss of Brébeuf. Although Lemieux will be going to prison for attempted murder, Gamache cannot bring himself to charge Brébeuf. Instead, his friend resigns, and he and his wife sell their home and leave Montreal.

One afternoon, Gamache goes to Nichol’s house to have tea with her family. He meets her many relatives but realizes that Nichol is always standing outside the group, waiting to be invited in. He tells her that she should not wait to be invited, but make a place for herself.

Afterward, he goes to the Sûreté to apologize to Francoeur for accusing him of Brébeuf’s crimes. Francoeur still wants him to resign and lets his bitterness against Gamache flow. Gamache leaves, realizing that he will never be able to get past Francoeur’s anger.

Clara has finally finished her painting, a portrait of Ruth, and she shows it to Peter. He is astonished by it, and they celebrate her success. She tells him that the dinner party has given her a new direction and thanks him for the suggestion. Peter is happy for her, but as they leave for the Hadley house, there remains a tiny remnant of jealousy.

Gamache and Reine-Marie are invited to a party in Three Pines, and when they get there, they realize that the villagers have decided to fix up the Hadley house and banish the past. As he helps, he thinks that the house may have wanted this all along—that what they felt emanating from it was not evil but sorrow. The villagers hope that someone will buy the house and give it new life as part of the community.