Armand Gamache is the main character in a series of crime novels written by Canadian author Louise Penny.

Gamache is head of homicide Chief of Police at the  Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force for Quebec. He’s an introspective man, confident in his abilities but also humble enough to recognise when his knowledge is inadequate.

He tells all his new agents that there are four things that can lead to widsom. They are words  he was taught by his own mentor and by which he has lived his life

I was wrong
I’m sorry
I don’t know
I need help

The 15 books in this series follow Armand Gamache as he makes sense of a web of disconnected facts to  track down murderers. He faces threats to his career and to his life and force him to question  who he can really trust.

Louise Penny intended each novel to be self-standing so you can read them out of sequence (as I have in fact). However to get the full effect of the character development it would be best to read in publication order.

Armand Gamache novels: Order of Publication

• 1. Still Life (read but not reviewed)√
  2. A Fatal Grace (published as Dead Cold in some countries) (read 2016) √
  3. The Cruelest Month (read July 2019) √
  4. A Rule Against Murder (published as the Murder Stone in some countries)
  5. The Brutal Telling
  6. Bury Your Dead
  7. A Trick of the Light (read 2022) √
  8. A Beautiful Mystery (read 2013) √
  9. How the Light Gets In (read 2014) √
  10. The Long Way Home (read 2014) √
  11. The Nature of the Beast
  12. A Great Reckoning (read 2016) √
  13. Glass Houses
  14. Kingdom of the Blind (read 2018) √
  15. A Better Man
  16. All the Devils Are Here
  17. The Madness of Crowds (read 2021) √
  18. A World of Curiosities

More information about Louise Penny can be found on her website