An artist who has spent much of her adult life in Three Pines, Clara is devoted to her friends and community. She is frequently untidy and cares little for her appearance, preferring to focus on her creativity. For years, Clara painted or sculpted feminist art few people appreciated, including her husband. During the series, Clara begins to paint more portraits, inspired by her community. In prior installments, Clara alienated prominent gallery owner Denis Fortin when she rejected his patronage over his antigay bias.

Clara is in turmoil for much of the text, as the body of her former friend, Lilian Dyson, is found in her garden the day after her celebratory party. Clara upbraids herself, telling Myrna, “I should be upset, devastated that this has happened” (80). Later, as though to atone for her guilt, she rushes to comfort Lillian’s grieving parents, only to realize she was acting selfishly. Clara thus re-enacts the motive for the murder, as she discovers that apologies are not moral in and of themselves, and can provoke anger when they are ego-driven.

Clara struggles with her new artistic success, but she takes comfort from both Myrna and Ruth Zardo, who remind her to rejoice in her creativity and find the courage to move forward. Clara becomes furious when she realizes her husband Peter has hidden business offers and congratulatory phone messages from her. She forces him to admit he has always resented her creativity and is not truly mollified when she finds his crisis is more spiritual than rooted in artistic envy. Clara frequently performs healing rituals with Myrna, especially after murders in the village, and she does so for Lillian—signifying that Clara understands the power of resentment and is determined not to let it destroy her.

Clara is frequently close to Gamache and Beauvoir as they work. Her home is the final scene where the murderer’s identity is revealed, as she invites friends and visitors to dinner. Clara considers suspects but also has an internal epiphany: She realizes she is tired of “[p]retending for a lifetime. Looking on the bright side but not always feeling it. But no more” (315). After Fortin is revealed as the killer, Clara asks Peter for a trial separation, signifying that she is putting her own health and happiness ahead of his preferences. In a way, Clara makes the same resolution Lillian did when she chose sobriety—to live with intention.

Clara’s husband and an artist in his own right, Peter comes from an emotionally distant, wealthy family. In the first installment in the series, Still Life, Peter discovers that his lifelong best friend, Ben Hadley, murdered his own mother and another villager, Jane Neal. This shakes Peter’s sense of himself, and in subsequent installments he becomes increasingly unhappy with Clara’s growing inspiration and critical success. Gamache is aware of this, as are most of the villagers, attesting to the tight-knit bonds in the community.

Peter admits to Gamache that he criticized Clara’s art in front of Lillian, only to see his observations end up in the campus newspaper. Peter says, “I convinced myself I’d done Clara a favor. In breaking up with Lillian, it freed Clara to do her own art” (50). He insists to Gamache that his support, especially his money, helped make Clara’s show happen. He ignores that his own lack of courage caused Clara great pain, and that he has compounded the damage in failing to celebrate her.

Eventually, Clara fully confronts him over his behavior, accusing him of sexism and feeling more emotionally comfortable when she is a failure. Peter lets his fear and doubt isolate him, and he finally admits that it has warped his perspective, just as the AA members describe their lives before sobriety. Peter struggles not with a substance dependency, but with the unavoidable truth that to be human is to be vulnerable. Peter’s search for himself forms the main plot of the 10th installment in the series, The Long Way Home.

Gamache’s longtime second-in-command, Beauvoir is active, impulsive, and cynical. His usual enthusiasm dims after the brutal shooting where he nearly dies. Beauvoir’s denial of his emotional pain has pushed him into substance use disorder. Beauvoir obsessively views the video of his own near-death: “[O]ver and over and over Beauvoir watched himself get shot in the abdomen.” (188). His character arc epitomizes the theme of The Challenges of Grief and Trauma. Though Gamache and Myrna try to tell him he deserves to heal, Beauvoir cannot accept their care. After many viewings of the video, he resolves that Gamache “abandoned him, to die alone on the filthy factory floor” (286). Beauvoir looks at the video until he finds an interpretation that allows him to feel anger instead of guilt. He engages in the same kind of emotional distortion Suzanne Coates describes in herself before sobriety.

Beauvoir’s personal life is another major subplot, as he decides to end his marriage and faces that he is in love with Gamache’s daughter, Annie. The two of them have a fractious relationship, which helps Beauvoir disguise his feelings. He lies to Gamache about his emotions as well as his willingness to return to therapy. Beauvoir’s recovery process, and return to emotional honesty, take on particular resonance in future works in the series.

A childhood friend of Clara’s who also attended art school, Lillian is found dead at Clara’s home at the beginning of the novel. This creates intense confusion, since she and Clara were estranged. Clara confesses their history to Gamache with her trademark honesty, describing Lillian’s possessiveness and inability to support her artistic goals.

Gamache discovers that Lillian had a dual nature. As a critic, before sobriety, she was harsh and cruel, intentionally ruining lives and relationships. In AA, she was warm and engaging. Whether Lillian had truly embraced her more generous outlook becomes the key to finding her killer. He explains to the assembled guests, “while she was healing she wasn’t yet healthy” (325), as she timed her apology to Clara to dominate the event. Gamache realizes that Lillian’s apology to Denis Fortin, and her determination to see Clara, gave Fortin both motive and opportunity to kill her.

Lillian’s efforts to heal are most visible in her art, which both Gamache and Thérèse Brunel admire, while Marois and Castonguay both are prepared to fight over who will manage her career. Like Clara, she takes her everyday life and makes it inspiring. Gamache realizes she found hope and light in the same church building he finds forbidding. However, like Peter and Beauvoir, Lillian’s perception was sometimes distorted: She convinced herself she could combine recovery with her own need to be recognized, rather than to see others as deserving space from her. Clara’s choice to wish her peace, through the ritual with the prayer stick, affirms that no one is truly beyond redemption.

Marois is an art dealer while Castonguay is a gallery owner who also takes artists on as clients. Both attend the vernissage for Clara’s art show, and soon arrive in Three Pines, eager to convince Peter and Clara to sign with them to further their own ambitions. Marois is more sophisticated and intellectual, as he immediately appreciates Clara’s portraits and recognizes that Clara has painted Ruth as an abandoned Virgin Mary awash in negative emotion. Castonguay is crude and grasping, preferring Peter’s art because he can sell it to a large corporate client. Marois also instantly recognizes the potential for fractures in the Morrow marriage, as he tells Gamache he wants to sign Clara because he once had a client choose her marriage over her art, as “his happiness was more important to her than her own” (76).

Though Marois seems compassionate, his relationship with Castonguay reveals more of his true nature: He exploits the other man’s alcohol dependency and deliberately baits him. Both men lie to Gamache about knowing Lillian Dyson and conceal their rivalry over her work. Castonguay nearly tries to strangle Marois due to this rivalry, making the power of jealousy tangible. Penny uses both characters to convey that loving art does not necessarily mean people are moral or generous.

A prominent gallery owner and agent, Denis Fortin is young, arrogant, and certain of his place in the world. In a prior work in the series, The Brutal Telling, he considered representing Clara but rejected her when she told him his use of antigay slurs for Olivier and Gabri was unacceptable to her. Fortin frequently epitomizes the theme of Art as a Reflection of Self. Though Fortin admires art and beauty and relishes a life where he is surrounded by creativity, he is deeply arrogant.

Fortin openly admits to Gamache that he uses antigay language with clients he knows are members of the LGBTQ+ community, because he enjoys exploiting their fear. Clara’s prior refusal to work with Fortin due to his views was a pivotal moment, as she chose morality over potential fame. After Isabelle Lacoste brings him proof that Lillian savagely reviewed a young Fortin’s first art show, Gamache unmasks him as her killer.

Fortin is unrepentant, certain Lillian’s cruelty justifies her death. He mocks Clara’s compassion, telling her, “I treat you like crap and you not only forgive me, but invite me down to your home?” (330). Fortin’s emotional insecurity and cruelty are a cautionary tale about the corrosive effects of resentment and the refusal to grow. Where Lillian tried to change for the better, Fortin let setbacks destroy his sense of morality.

A famous poet turned recluse, Ruth is an acerbic person with few real personal connections, as her closest friends, Timmer Hadley and Jane Neal, were both murdered during the first novel in the series. Ruth drinks heavily, likely to numb her emotions. She has close, if biting, relationships with Olivier and Beauvoir, reserving specific insults for them. Her closest bond is with her duck, Rosa, whom she rescued and nursed to health, only to let her fly south for the winter.

Ruth betrays her vulnerable side in private moments. This is clearest when she takes Clara aside and tells her that it is easy to focus on the critical reviews of one’s work and forget to celebrate the recognition. Clara sees this as a gift of friendship, telling Myrna, “She showed me my future, if I’m not careful” (110). If Clara’s art is rooted in love of humanity, Ruth’s is more misanthropic, but not entirely bleak. Clara herself depicts this underappreciated aspect of Ruth’s character by painting her as a derelict Virgin Mary, possibly on the cusp of a new reason to live.

Ruth is a sharp observer of the world around her, pointing out to Gamache that Marois is intentionally exploiting his colleague’s alcohol dependency. At the end of the novel, Ruth’s beloved duck returns, and the incipient joy on her face is the text’s final image. Penny thus establishes that Ruth’s love for Rosa is part of her essential nature, and that Clara’s view of her is, if not the only possible one, rooted in emotional truth.

The owners of the Three Pines bistro and antique shop, Olivier and Gabri are longtime romantic partners. They have recently reunited after Olivier’s release from prison after a mistaken murder arrest, which Gamache carried out. Olivier is warm and compassionate, and he and Gabri offer Clara emotional support before her show, while Peter does not notice her anxiety. Clara herself returns the favor later, gently urging Olivier to reconcile with Gamache, as the other villagers have welcomed him back and Gamache encouraged Beauvoir to reopen the case against him and find the true killer.

When Clara tries to assure him that Ruth has “always called him a dickhead” (67) Olivier despairs that she now calls him by name. Eventually, Olivier confronts Gamache, telling him, “Do you think prison is less horrible because you didn’t do it maliciously?” (302). Through his relationship with Olivier, Gamache is forced to face a new aspect of grief and trauma—pain he personally caused. Gamache accepts Olivier’s anger and encourages him to reconnect with the world. His apology, unlike Lillian’s, is about what is best for Olivier, rather than his own ego. At the end of the novel, Olivier hands Ruth a sweater and she insults him, signaling that he is re-entering his old life.

The owner of the bookstore in Three Pines, Myrna is a retired therapist and Clara’s dear friend. She and Gamache are also close, as they share a similar interest in psychology and the rich world of emotions. Myrna is loving and loyal, telling Clara throughout the series that her art is meaningful and underappreciated. Even as she intentionally reads all the critical reviews, Myrna trusts her own values: “[S]he didn’t care how the world saw Clara’s art. Myrna knew it was genius” (79). Myrna talks with Beauvoir about his obvious emotional pain. Later, she tells Gamache that while his worries are justified, the love between the two men will be Gamache’s “road home” (311). Myrna’s routine clarity of vision, in contrast to the doubts and pain around her, are a key part of the emotional landscape of Three Pines.

Reine-Marie is a librarian and Gamache’s wife of many years, and his emotional anchor. Like her husband, she is both intellectual and highly empathetic. Annie is their daughter, a lawyer who shares her family’s zest for life. Gamache notes that Annie had a crush on Beauvoir as a teenager, which she hid under a veneer of dislike and constant arguing with him. Reine-Marie notices immediately when Annie asks her parents what they would have done if they had been married to other people when they met—unlike her husband, she seems closer to realizing the truth of the feelings between Annie and Beauvoir. Annie’s efforts to help Beauvoir, and eventual decision to marry him, become key parts of his emotional recovery and continuing maturation throughout the series.

Longtime friends of Gamache and Reine-Marie, Thérèse is a former museum curator who developed a passion for investigations often based on her artistic expertise, so she is now a senior Sûreté officer. Jérôme is a retired doctor with a passion for codes, ciphers, and computers. The couple first appear in The Brutal Telling, where Thérèse helps Gamache appraise the hermit’s art and its role in his murder. She takes on a similar role with the Dyson investigation, affirming Gamache’s instinct that Lillian’s art is impressive and might be lucrative.

As a senior Sûreté officer, Thérèse is aware of the recent shooting and its effects on Gamache. Though she tries to dissuade him from investigating who leaked the video, she acknowledges that it is “an attack on officers dead and alive” (273), indirectly affirming that Beauvoir’s viewings of it are a kind of self-harm. Jérôme tries to assure Gamache that the video does not condemn him, but Gamache disagrees—another debate in the text about the perception and meaning of visual work. Both Brunels will prove key to Gamache’s corruption fight in future installments.

Pineault works as a prominent judge in Montreal, while Brian, in his early twenties, is covered in tattoos and piercings, some of which advertise prior interest in Nazi ideology. Gamache seems surprised to see Pineault, with whom he has interacted professionally, in a humble church basement, and assumes he is Brian’s AA sponsor. Both Beauvoir and Gamache are somewhat repulsed by Brian, especially by his admission during an AA meeting that he killed a child while driving under the influence. Brian and Pineault attempt to help Andre Castonguay consider resuming a life of sobriety, and Brian also supports Suzanne’s efforts to tell Gamache the truth about her past with Lillian. Gamache is surprised when Pineault opts to act as an AA member rather than a lawyer during Suzanne’s interrogation, The older man tells him, “only another alcoholic can help her stay sober through this” (279).

Gamache becomes suspicious of Pineault’s relationship with Brian, believing he played a role in the death of the older man’s granddaughter. Pineault himself later confirms this, but explains to Gamache that Brian is his sponsor—he has been sober longer, and he realized that the young man had much to teach him. This dynamic underscores that while Gamache is intelligent, even he can be swayed by incorrect assumptions and perceptions.

Lillian Dyson’s AA sponsor, Suzanne is confident to the point of bluntness, easily admitting that she is not much of an artist though she has been passionately engaged in it for years. She explains to Gamache that for her, substance use disorder is “a disease of the emotions. Of perception […] we get all screwed up in how we see things’” (222). Suzanne is describing herself and Lillian, but her words could apply equally to Peter, to Beauvoir, or to Gamache himself. Trauma and jealousy, the novel suggests, can each destroy one’s relationships and outlook.

Suzanne briefly becomes a suspect, as Isabelle Lacoste finds that she was the subject of one of Lillian’s most scathing reviews. Gamache is unconvinced she is responsible, but he begins to suspect the killer might be someone else Lillian targeted. Suzanne upbraids Denis Fortin for his murderous rage at Lillian, telling him, “I’d held onto that hurt, fed it, grew it […] but finally I wanted something more than I wanted my own pain” (331). Suzanne represents what happens when people truly face their worst traits. While Gamache and Clara take to her readily, Beauvoir’s suspicion of her mirrors his own reluctance to face his struggles and decide he too, deserves respite.