Glass Houses

On a cold November day a dark figure appears on the village green in Three Pines, masked and motionless. It breaks no law. It says nothing. It simply stands, and watches, and will not leave — and the longer it stays, the more the village frays.

Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache knows what it is and what it means, and he chooses to do nothing. Then the figure disappears and a body is found, and the question becomes whether a debt has been paid or a far larger one incurred.

Glass Houses is the thirteenth Chief Inspector Gamache novel. It is told across two seasons — the murder in November and the trial the following July, where Gamache takes the stand and his own conduct is slowly, deliberately exposed. Penny is less interested in who killed than in what a good man is willing to sacrifice, and whom, to strike at something larger.