In Three Pines, Clara Morrow finally celebrates her triumphant first solo show as an artist only to discover a dead body in her garden the next day. To her shock, the victim is Clara's estranged childhood friend who made a name for herself as a vicious art critic. Now Inspector Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir must dive once again into the people of Three Pines to catch a killer.

In the seventh installment of the Gamache series, Louise Penny seems to have solidly decided to shift the series toward being art mysteries. The latest case was a satisfying look at the character motivations of your favorite local citizens. Penny delivers more of the same in A Trick of the Light, which is nice in its predictability but does not exactly excite the imagination.