Novella featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and doesn't really seem to be a part of the 3 Pines Mystery series.
Gamache is brought into a suspected suicide but his gut tells him something differently. the body is discovered by a runner who does call the police but makes no effort to see if the person is really dead or not. Plus after examination there is no way that the dead man could have climbed the tree to kill himself. But most curious is when they go to the Bed and Breakfast where both the dead man and the runner are staying the dead man is using a name of a famous Canadian hangman. In his room they find a suicide letter and while it was proven that it was written by the man Gamache just knows he didn't hang himself but was helped.
When they discover the actual identity of the dead man it gets even more interested as he had survived having his car hit by a car of drunk teens. Both his wife and child were killed but the teens were unhurt and it could never be proven who was actually driving the car so no charges were pressed against them. More than 20 years later 2 of the teens have been killed by hanging so Gamache supspects that the dead man has been hunting the surviving teens to serve his justice but maybe they got him first.
Interesting side-note, the author wrote this novella for a programme
called GoodReads Canada, which was created by national
literacy organizations to publish books aimed at emerging
adult readers. It is written at a grade 3
level, but for adults. Very clear, very simple. Not really
the most complex plot or style, for obvious reasons.
I really enjoy Louise Penny as she has such a lovely way of describing people and situations and really finds the psychological part of the mystery. I wish more of these were available via Kindle through the library but this one is the only one so far. So I'll have to read the rest in traditional book form.