Louise Penny's A Rule Against Murder explores some deep concepts. In this mystery, Inspector Gamache and his wife are celebrating their wedding anniversary. Except for their room, the entire resort has been taken over by the Finney family, for a family reunion.
This family exemplifies showing "a stiff upper lip." No one admits how they really feel and have made an art of hurting each other with long ago digs at childish follies. They call one brother "Spot" because he had acne as a teen. Another is called Magilla because she watched the cartoon, Magilla Gorilla. The mother has neuralgia, which means that she felt pain when she was touched, so she distanced herself from her children, yet they never knew she had neuralgia. Worse, she nevers tells them.
To hurt Chief Inspector Gamache, she keeps reminding him that his father was a coward and traitor. This is explained by Gamache and he admits that it's true. But it was his father's cross, not his. Gamache's father was a pacifist and gave speeches to keep Canada out of the war. Gamache father worked for the Red Cross and served as a medic in WWII. He was called in to minister to the concentration victims. When he saw the condition of the inmates, and heard their stories, he changed his mind. He was sorry that his speeches delayed Canada from going to War sooner. He saw how evil Hitler's regime was, and had to be stopped. He was a pacifist, no longer. He then gave speeches how wrong he was.
Back to the murder, at the unveiling of a statue of Charles Finney, the statue falls on top of Julia Finney Martin. At first, it looks like a weird accident, but the coroner proves otherwise.
The Inspector and his team investigate. Everyone seems a suspect because they have been hurting each other, all their lives and revenge is a motive. Money and love between the siblings are motives, also.
The characters have not only been carrying these crosses, all their lives, they've nurtured them. They've never learned to roll with the punches.
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