I found this softcover in this Little Free Library in Nashua NH while dropping off some books of my own, and nabbed it for another release copy. [I learned that this book was released as Dead Cold in the UK, btw.]

I seem to have read the series backwards, or perhaps inside out: I discovered it via The Brutal Telling a while back, and enjoyed it so much that I've been collecting the other books in whatever order I can. This one is the second in the series, following Still Life and followed by The Cruelest Month.

This book introduces the horrible wannabe self-help guru CC de Poitiers, who is self-centered to a frightening degree, and whose emotional abuse of her daughter Crie is infuriating to read about. Luckily, she's the victim in this one, electocuted in a rather convoluted way at a Three Pines curling event - it's one of those cases where my tendency is to think "OK, that's over, let's move on" {wry grin}. But Gamache doesn't feel that way, and another case kicks off.

Artist Clara has a key role in this story - in fact sometimes I wonder if the series is as much about her as it is about Gamache. Art and its ups and downs, including Clara's husband's ongoing jealousy of her talent, features heavily here. There's also a lot of family-history, with unexpected tie-ins (some of which I actually managed to guess before it was revealed in the investigation, a rare thing for me in mysteries, so I was pleased). There's humor, including some hilarious conversations between characters (the "Das" discussion had me laughing out loud), and some very creepy scenes, including those that reveal the depths of troubled, irksome Agent Nichol's internal doubts, fears, and flaming rage. We also learn more about the ongoing fallout of the Arnot case, which Gamache had hoped was all in the past - but he has enemies in the force, some known and some very much unknown (yet), and things are getting suspicious. (Some of this will come to a head in The Cruelest Month, but it seems to be an ongoing theme of the whole series.)

I was delighted to find that the classic film "Lion in Winter" features prominently as a source of clues - and of some entertaining scenes where Gamache, Beauvoir, and other characters watch the film to see what it might reveal about the case. I was surprised that so few of them had seen it before, but pleased at their reactions.

There's a lot of symbolism here, and a very convoluted plot that struck me as unbelievable even allowing for the situation, but I enjoyed the story anyway. I'm getting very fond of these characters, though that's dangerous, as I've learned from later books in the series; you never know who's going to suffer, and how badly...

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I left this book in the Little Free Library on this chilly day; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2021 Clean Start for the New Year challenge, for the embedded "Ace" in the title. ***

*** Released for the 2021 52 Towns in 52 Weeks challenge. ***