ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have a few people to thank for this book. The first and foremost, as always, is my kind and gentle husband Michael. It took me a lot longer than it should have to realize that Armand Gamache isn’t simply my fictional husband, he’s my real husband. Indeed, without even realizing it I based Chief Inspector Gamache on Michael. A man who is content and knows great joy, because he’s known great sorrow. And mostly, he knows the difference.

I’d also like to thank Rachel Hewitt who curates the sculpture collection at the Royal Academy in London.

Hope Dellon, of St Martin’s Minotaur and Sherise Hobbs of Headline are my editors and worked to make this book what it is. I owe them both a huge debt, as I do the most wonderful agent in the world, Teresa Chris. She is very wise.

I owe a great debt to Lise Page, my assistant, who patiently tends gardens in the summer and tends to us the rest of the year. Everything she touches flourishes. And she rarely finds the need to use fertilizer.

And finally Jason, Stephen and Kathy Stafford who own and run Manoir Hovey in the village of North Hatley, Quebec. The Manoir Bellechasse is inspired by Hovey Manor, and by the many, many wonderful days and nights we’ve spent there. If you read this book and then visit Hovey you’ll notice that it is far from an exact replica – of the Inn or the lake. But I hope I have, at least, captured the feel of Manoir Hovey. In fact, Michael and I love it so much we got married in the tiny Anglican Chapel in North Hatley many years ago, then had a two-day wedding party at Hovey.

Bliss.

Though, as Stephen has pointed out, they happily do not have nearly the number of blackflies as the fictional Manoir Bellechasse. Nor, it must be said, nearly the number of murders.