A Trick of the Light

The Morrow garden, and the landscape of Three Pines itself, are key motifs in the novel. Before the vernissage, Gamache spends time “looking out into the trees of the park. A natural setting. He so yearned for that” (12). Gamache sees nature as an escape from his burdens, only to find that Clara’s garden is his next crime scene. There, Gamache takes in the lilac bushes and thinks how they “flourished and bloomed where other more apparently robust plants died. The village of Three Pines, he noticed, was dotted with lilac bushes” (60). Gamache’s reflections suggest that beauty is not a weakness or an indulgence, but can nourish and provide emotional strength.

Clara and her friends perform a spiritual practice in her garden, to acknowledge the wrong done there and promote healing. It is during this ritual that Clara and her friends find Lillian’s AA chip, which reflects how Lillian was also seeking peace and renewal. Clara and her friends acknowledge their complex emotions about Lillian’s death, and nature rewards them with the evidence that will lead Gamache to Lillian’s sobriety journey and the motive for her murder.

Later in the text, Suzanne Coates surveys the village and tells Gamache that she longed for “a quiet place in the bright sunshine.