Happily retired in the village of Three Pines Armand Gamache former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sxfbretxe du Quxebec has found a peace hed only imagined possible On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book The Balm in Gilead in his large hands xThere is a balm in Gileadx his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket xto make the wounded wholexWhile Gamache doesnt talk about his wounds and his balm Clara tells him about hers Peter her artist husband has failed to come home Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation She wants Gamaches help to find him Having finally found sanctuary Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines xTheres power enough in Heavenx he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village xto cure a sin-sick soulx And then he gets up And joins herTogether with his former second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Myrna Landers they journey deeper and deeper into Quxebec And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist he would sell that soul And may have The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines to the very mouth of the great St Lawrence river 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.
