This is one of the best, and also in a way most difficult of the books. It is the one I accidentally deleted from my kindle in Spain (having decided to read it, as you do).
It is the one where Olivier is wrongly accused by Gamache and convicted of killing the hermit from whom he has been stealing and selling artefacts, the provenance of which (Czechoslovakia after the Berlin Wall came down?) is never entirely clear. Possibly the hermit had been entrusted by friends and family to smuggle them out and has kept them for himself?
There is a plot diversion involving the hermit being frightened (by Olivier?) almost to death, a carving involving a boy who leads his followers to destruction, and totemic carvings on Charlotte Island, so it is all quite obscure.
On a 2nd reading, I think that possibly Olivier is jailed by Gamache for his greed, dishonesty and deceit, and it may be that his innocence of the actual murder (which from memory is rather weakly dealt with in a later book) was known by Gamache at the time. But how omniscient is he supposed to be?
Despite difficulties a great book and I have found her latest publication on Amazon.
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