Not all of the Three Pines murder mysteries are of equal weight or appeal. Some of the installments seem to wander far afield, and these polarize readers, who either hate them or love them.

Two good examples of same are: The Beautiful Mysteries, and The Long Way Home. The first focuses largely on Gregorian plainchant, which is not to every taste: the murder takes place inside a strictly enclosed monastic community. The second focuses on the visual arts and speculative thought, and literally flies from Quebec to Scotland and back. I had a hard time with that one myself.

While I would not dream of spoiling A Great Reckoning, this is an opportune moment to direct readers to an earlier book that holds a key to the big reveal in A Great Reckoning's final pages. That earlier book is A Trick of the Light. Both that earlier book and this book make much of falling from grace, repentance, and redemption, or the refusal of redemption. What Inspector Gamache learns while solving the Three Pines murder in A Trick of the Light directly informs Gamache's unorthodox decision in A Great Reckoning. And the latest book is one of those which, once you know who did what to whom and why, you want to go straight back and read all over again from the beginning: recommended.