The Cruelest Month

Of all the Three Pines villagers, Clara’s perspective is the one Penny adopts most often. She is the unspoken leader of Three Pines, and when the others are unsure about the séance at the Hadley house, instinctively they turned to Clara: “Without asking for it she’d become the heart of their community. Small, middle-aged and getting a little plump, Clara was that rare combination: she was sensible and sensitive” (29). Gamache recognizes this quality and seeks her out during his investigation: “He valued her opinion and her eye for detail, for things visible and those not. He knew he should consider her a suspect, along with everyone else at the séance, but the truth was he didn’t. He considered her a precious witness” (63). She is Gamache’s main source of information and insight in his Three Pines investigations.

Clara is a 48-year-old painter who has not yet attained commercial success. She is working on a painting to show to a gallery owner, but her husband, Peter, undermines her confidence in small ways. Clara has doubts about her work, which Peter subtly reinforces due to his own jealousy. When she finishes the painting, however, he admits that it is a masterpiece. Although she often feels uncertain, Clara is intelligent and compassionate and provides a valuable perspective for both Gamache and the reader.

Madeleine is the murder victim, killed by Hazel via a combination of ephedra, a weak heart, and a terrible fright. Madeleine is “slim with very short dark hair and gleaming brown eyes. Doe eyes, made larger by the haircut. Her smile was full and without artifice or agenda” (86). Nearly five years ago, Madeleine fought breast cancer, and she recently found out that her cancer had returned, although she does not tell anyone. She moved to Three Pines several years ago and lives with Hazel, her closest friend, and Hazel’s daughter, Sophie.

Everyone loves Madeleine, it seems; as Clara says, “Madeleine was lovely, in every sense. She was easy to like and I suspect easy to love” (65). Yet her success and popularity sometimes causes those close to her to become overwhelmed. Her ex-husband tells Lacoste, “Everything she did she was good at. She just glowed. It was like living too close to the sun” (220). Because of her success, Madeleine can sometimes be unconsciously selfish; Clara tells Gamache, “I think Madeleine was used to getting what she wanted. Not because she was greedy but just because it always happened” (214). Sophie agrees, telling Beauvoir, “She took things” (85). For example, Madeleine develops a relationship with Monsieur Béliveau despite Hazel’s interest in him. In the end, this lack of understanding, and Hazel’s jealousy, leads to her death.

Hazel is Madeleine’s killer. She murders Madeleine, her best friend, because all of Three Pines, including her own daughter, is infatuated with her. This is a pattern she recognizes from their school friendship, and Hazel believes that, as in school, she will once again be second best to Madeleine. Hazel loves Madeleine, but resents her budding relationship with Monsieur Béliveau, as well as her own daughter’s crush on Madeleine. When Gamache asks her when she decided to kill Madeleine, she answers, “When Sophie came home for Christmas, and kissed her first” (300). Gamache points out that although she claims to love Madeleine, Hazel’s feelings are more about attachment than love, a distinction made by Myrna.

Unlike Madeleine, Hazel is quiet and unassuming. She describes herself as “a middle-aged woman sitting on a sofa wearing a sensible tweed skirt and an olive twinset. Around her neck was a modest set of pearls. It could have been her mother” (19). Hazel is known throughout Three Pines for spending her days helping others, to the point where, as Gamache points out, it is more pity than compassion, another example of the near enemy that Myrna talks about. Under the guise of being compassionate, Hazel uses others to make herself feel better, but once Gamache reveals her to be the killer, the villagers withdraw from her.

Superintendent Michel Brébeuf is Gamache’s closest friend since childhood. However, Gamache eventually discovers that Brébeuf is behind the persistent media campaign to discredit him and destroy his family. He is jealous of Gamache’s happiness, in contrast with his own discontent, despite his own personal and professional successes.

Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir is Gamache’s second-in-command and sees Gamache as a father figure. Gamache returns the feelings, saying, “You’re my successor, Jean Guy. The next in line. I love you like a son. And I need you” (235). Beauvoir sees himself as a pragmatic, skeptical man yet struggles to maintain that attitude as the investigation continues.

Agent Yvette Nichol is Gamache’s newest protégé, and during this investigation, she acts as his agent provocateur, disrupting the team to discover who is working against him. As Gamache says, she “had shown an aptitude for finding murderers. She was a sort of idiot savante, who had that one ability” (146), but she also is surly, rude, and difficult.

Agent Robert Lemieux is on Gamache’s team but secretly works for Brébeuf. He is superficially charming and likable; however, underneath he is driven by dreams of rising through the Sûreté ranks and entering politics. In the end, he goes to prison for attempting to murder Gamache.

Agent Isabelle Lacoste is also on Gamache’s team. Like Gamache, she feels at home in Three Pines and especially feels a connection to Clara and Myrna. Gamache recruited her because of her sensitivity, illustrated by her ritual of visiting each crime scene to reassure the victim that they will find the murderer.