“‘Give it time, Armand.’ ‘Avec le temps?’ Gamache returned the older man’s smile and made a fist of his right hand. To stop the trembling. A tremble so slight he was certain the waitress in the Québec City café hadn’t noticed. The two students across the way tapping on their laptops wouldn’t notice. No one would notice. Except someone very close to him.”

Armand Gamache’s exchange with Émile Comeau establishes the close bond between the two men: His mentor knows Gamache is not himself. Gamache’s efforts to hide the aftereffects of his stroke indicate that he struggles to accept his new limitations. Penny’s repetition of what is not noticeable emphasizes that Gamache’s trauma is more than physical—the pain Émile notices is emotional. Thus, Penny establishes that much of the work is likely to concentrate on Gamache’s inner world, even as the mystery genre dictates that he will find and capture a culprit.

“Not because she liked him but because she knew even then something it would take Porter Wilson decades to realize. The English of Québec City were no longer the juggernauts, no longer the steamships, no longer the gracious passenger liners of the society and economy. They were a life raft. Adrift. And you don’t make war on others in the raft.”

This reflection establishes Elizabeth MacWhirter’s perspicacity and insightful nature, introducing her to the reader even before Gamache meets her. The nautical metaphors move in descending order—the industry of the steamship gives way to the luxury of a passenger liner and finally to the desperation of the life raft. Тhe repetition of the phrase “no longer” emphasizes the consistent deterioration, almost a lament. MacWhirter is conciliatory and practical, a strategist at heart. Her matter-of-fact approach will later contrast with the desperation of Augustin Renaud’s killer.