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Book blurb

‘There’s a body in Lost Nation.’ But the line goes dead before Chief Inspector Armand Gamache can question the caller.

The head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec has no idea where Lost Nation is, or who woke him in the small hours of the morning at his home in Three Pines. What he does know is that the man was terrified.

When he and his team of Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste find both place and body, the situation only grows more bizarre. The unidentified dead man appears to be from an era more than a century old. He’s lying in a long-abandoned cemetery, on top of a grave with a date, but no name. 

Adding to the mystery, the early morning call appears to have come from Gamache’s friend and neighbour, Clara Morrow. While she denies any knowledge of it, it becomes clear there is some connection between her, the Morrow family, and Lost Nation.

Soon, Gamache and his team are faced with tracking down not just the legend of Lost Nation, but a lost ship, lost documents belong to an eccentric Victorian botanist, and a mysterious plant not seen in a century, that might save, or take, countless lives.

As the ghosts begin to gather, Gamache realises that the body on the grave is far from the only death. To solve the crime and avert catastrophe he must look to rancid secrets and old lies no longer dead and buried.

My thoughts

It’s been great to be back in Three Pines with the terrific characters that live there and with those of the The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) Chief Inspector Gamache’s colleagues who have become family and friends.

After everything that happened in the two previous books (The Grey Wolf and The Black Wolf) it has been a joy to return to Three Pines and a new book that is centred around a murder investigation.

It all starts with a phone call to Armand Gamache and takes us on a fascinating, thrilling and heartbreaking ride through forest, across the Atlantic Ocean to France and England returning to Canada and Three Pines.

This is a beautifully written book which, as fans of the Gamache series will know, takes the reader on a twisty, complex and sometimes heartbreaking journey through time and across lands. Louise Penny takes several fascinating pieces of history and weaves a glorious tale of a man’s curiosity that will put him in grave danger from those who are desperate to find wealth from the mystery behind Miss Wolcott’s Ghost.

Miss Wolcott is based on a real person. The Lost Nation is a real place. The Empress of Ireland is a tragic historical event that has been lost across time. These things have been brought back into the light by Louise Penny in a story that is well worth reading yes because of how beautifully these things have been woven together into a terrific story but also because of the fictional story, characters and setting of Three Pines a place I think everyone loves and would like to live in. All of these things are written so well that they feel very real and you become totally immersed in the story.

There are, as I say, some heartbreaking threads within the story. Not least that of The Empress of Ireland, the deaths, the murders but each is handled carefully and with respect. The way that, in particular, Jean Guy reacts to these and other past events is wonderfully done. The reappearance of one character from Armand, Isabelle, Jean Guy and Reine Marie’s past brings a tense and emotional twist to the story.

What a wonderful book Miss Wolcott’s Ghost is! An excellent read which I highly recommend.

BlogTour and thanks

Thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invite to this tour and especially to Hodder & Stoughton for an eARC for the purpose of reading and sharing my thoughts.

Why not take a read through these wonderful blogs before popping down to the links below to purchase your own copy of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost by Louise Penny.

Information

Published: HODDER & STOUGHTON, £22 H/B | 20th Oct 2026 | 489 pp | ISBN-13 978-1399753517

Buy: Amazon UK | Bookshop.org (affiliate link) | Hive UK | Your local library | Your local bookshop

Further information

The Empress of Ireland | Lost Nation /Pleasant Valley | Miss Willmott

Author

Louise Penny is an international award-winning and bestselling author whose books have hit number one on the New York Times, USA Today and Globe and Mail lists. Her Chief Inspector Gamache novels have been translated into thirty-one languages and have sold over 18 million copies worldwide. She has received the Ordre National du Quebec and the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian culture. In 2021, she co-authored the standalone thriller State of Terror with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Louise Penny lives in a village south of Montreal.

Further information/follow

Louise Penny: website | on Facebook

Key characters from the Three Pines community

Armand Gamache head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec. 

Reine-Marie Gamache librarian and archivist, and Armand’s wife. 

Annie Armand and Reine-Marie’s daughter. 

Jean-Guy Beauvoir Armand’s second in command at the Sûreté du Québec, and his son-in-law. 

Isabelle Lacoste co-second-in-command at the Sûreté du Québec. 

Clara artist, Ruth poet, Myrna bookstore owner, Olivier bistro co-owner, Gabri Olivier’s partner – runs the B&B. Monsieur Beliveau runs the General Store and Sarah runs the Boulangerie.

Books

Still Life | A Fatal Grace | The Cruelest Month | A Rule Against Murder | The Brutal Telling | Bury Your Dead | A Trick of the Light | The Beautiful Mystery | How the Light Gets In | The Long Way Home | The Nature of the Beast | A Great Reckoning | Glass Houses | Kingdom of the Blind | A Better Man | All the Devils Are Here | The Madness of Crowds | A World of Curiosities | The Grey Wolf | The Black Wolf | Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

Hangman (Chief Inspector Gamache and set in Three Pines – literacy novella) published by Grass Roots Press (Amazon)

State of Terror (with Hillary Rodham Clinton) | The Last Mandarin (with Mellissa Fung)