The action in the last three chapters kept me deeply involved. I wasn't entirely surprised by the ending, as it was more or less what I'd figured was inevitable. Of the author's style I shall not speak except to say, if you're reading this book ten of the series, don't complain because you *knew* what you were in for before the book arrived. The presentation is commensurate with the contents, classy and attractive and off-plumb enough to be irresistible. It's got an unusual and strong texture similar to painting canvas, which is appropriate it makes the jacket image far more like the beautiful painting it is, which is a lovely touch and they spent the spondulix to spot-varnish the author's name and photo, and the title, in a bid to look luxe. The dust jacket is printed, quite unusually, on case-spine binding paper. I mean, the object that is a book, not the novel inside the book.

Let's just say that at least one person of my intimates will end this book smiling from ear to hobbity ear. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it 'The land God gave to Cain.' And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul.

And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. 'There’s power enough in Heaven,' he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, 'to cure a sin-sick soul.' And then he gets up. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. 'There is a balm in Gilead,' his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, 'to make the wounded whole.' On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. The Publisher Says: Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. THE LONG WAY HOME (Chief Inspector Gamache #10)

The long way home book louise penny