• Bury Your Dead

  • A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
  • By: Louise Penny
  • Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
  • Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (6,203 ratings)

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Bury Your Dead  By  cover art

Bury Your Dead

By: Louise Penny
Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
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Publisher's summary

"Ralph Cosham’s excellent narration of Louise Penny’s newest mystery demonstrates why a terrific narrator is an author’s best partner." —AudioFile Magazine

Bury Your Dead is a novel about life and death—and all the mystery that remains—from #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is on break from duty in Three Pines to attend the famed Winter Carnival up north. He has arrived in this beautiful, freezing city not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong. Still, violent death is inescapable—even here, in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society, where one obsessive academic’s quest for answers will lead Gamache down a dark path . . .

Meanwhile, Gamache is receiving disturbing news from his hometown village. Beloved bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder but everyone—including Gamache—believes that he is innocent. Who is behind this sinister plot? Now it’s up to Gamache to solve this killer case . . . and relive a terrible event from his own past before he can begin to bury his dead.

“Few writers in any genre can match Penny’s ability to combine heartbreak and hope.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Crack another case with Chief Inspector Gamache.
©2010 Three Pines Creations, Inc. (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Ralph Cosham's excellent narration of Louise Penny's newest mystery demonstrates why a terrific narrator is an author's best partner…My only quibble is that the Penny-Cosham team kept me listening past my bedtime.” —AudioFile magazine

“This sixth entry in Agatha and Anthony award-winning author Penny's Armand Gamache series is among the best…The solution to both killings as well as the event that drew Gamache to Quebec in the first place are all slowly and expertly revealed.” —Library Journal

Featured Article: Best Mystery Series—Listens That'll Take You Right to the Crime Scene


While a standalone mystery is great when you're in the mood for a one-and-done, sometimes you want to feed your craving with an entire mystery series—knowing there's a world and characters you can keep coming back to for the satisfaction of solving crimes. With audiobooks, you get the added bonus of sinking deeper into the setting, clues, and suspects as the story is performed for you, so you'll feel like you're alongside detectives, ready to bust a case.

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The Great Gamache in Old Quebec

There are novels with heroes so perfect or predictable it ruins the book for me. I even find myself cringing while reading the synopsis of a new Gray Man, Mitch Rapp or Jack Ryan novel. I think that's why I fell in love with Harry Hole and Dept Q and now Armand Gamache.

Gamache, however, is remarkably different than Hole and Carl Mork. They are as belligerent, arrogant, self destructive and unpredictable as they are brilliant. Inspector Gamache is highly respected and revered by his family, peers, subordinates and superiors. He too is brilliant, but we are made privy to where and from whom it comes from. He is not an island. There's two other characteristics that make him so uniquely different for a lead detective, he is remarkably humble and vulnerable.

In Bury Your Dead, Gamache is on leave after suffering injury and PTSD from a recent case that ended violently and tragically. The details of this case are masterfully weaved around two separate murders revealed throughout the novel. To recooperate he's vacationing at the home of his retired mentor in Quebec while researching his first love, French Canadien history. A murdered man is discovered in the basement of the research library where Gamache studies. Given his reputation he is reluctantly drawn into the investigation.

And there's a nagging doubt about a previous mutrder in Three Pines that forces him to send back a key member of his team to quietly reopen the case. In this way, once again, we are brought into the remarkable lives of the villagers of Three Pines.

As always there's much more than murder afoot. Do yourself a favor and read this book!




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40 people found this helpful

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Another great tale!

When I discovered Armand Gamache, I was hooked. Something about his wisdom and inner peace along with an acute intelligence just made me want to know him more and more. Having read all the previous books, I feel this one meets all expectations. I was hooked from beginning to end and can't wait for the next one to come out.
The additional clip of an interview with Louise Penny was wonderful too. It was so great to hear her love of the characters and places and the fact that she sees the characters grow just as I do.

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21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Tour de force

Louise Penny continues to excel with each novel. This latest in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series is a tour de force. It's a complicated story, with essentially four narratives running parallel and often intersecting. There is the current murder to solve, that of an historian in the basement of the Literary and Historical Society. There is the previous mystery from Three Pines: that of the hermit in the woods, for which Olivier was convicted and sent to prison. And there is the shared experience of a case gone horribly wrong, an experience shared by Beauvoir and Gamache. While Gamache tries to solve the historian's murder, Beauvoir is in Three Pines to covertly and unofficially re-open the case of the previous murder. And while each man is on his separate journey, each remembers with well-placed flashbacks the case that almost killed them both. The flashbacks are an excruciating but pleasurable tease for the reader, because you don't know until near the very end what actually happened to Gamache and Beauvoir. Penny's deftly interlaces the flashbacks with current action, and Beauvoir's trip to Three Pines gives the reader some necessary comedic relief from the horror that is revealed through his memories. Cosham's narration is excellent as always. I am thoroughly spoiled by him, and hope that he will continue to narrate Penny's future Gamache novels.

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A mini-masterpiece.

I've enjoyed the opportunity to experience Louise Penny's growth as an author with the Three Pines mysteries. Each book in this series gets better, and this one is a small masterpiece of construction, characterization and plot. I was completely entranced. Penny shows us the (for most of us) unfamiliar culture of Quebec, while also delving deeper into the central personalities that inhabit each of these novels. Armand Gamache is one of those rare characters that we want to spend time with, and he is complemented by his temperamental second-in-command. Unlike the other books in the series, (which are really cozy mysteries in the classic style) this one surprises with its violent, dramatic climax, told in a series of wrenching flashbacks. Mystery novels don't get much better than this!

The reader is wonderful too.

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Ms. Penny writes a wonderful mystery story

I could not stop listening so for over 12hrs almost 13hrs. I was on Ms. Penny's wonderful mystery adventure. I like to check in with the residents of Three Pines to hear what exciting things are happening in the nice quite village that always has a murder to solve. This is a great addition to the Three Pines series.

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Three stories related only by the personalities.

More than others in the series, it would be a mistake to read this novel before having completed its predecessor "The Brutal Telling". This story involves two apparently independent mysteries, the one being a follow-on to the conclusion of "The Brutal Telling," the other, being a hunt for the murderer of a controversial character Augustin Renaud, seeker of the grave of the founder of Quebec City, Samuel de Champlain.

To enjoy the Inspector Gamache series, you must like police procedurals and character development. Otherwise, you will find these plots slow to develop with lots of seemingly irrelevant side trails explored. However, along the way, you learn about the history and culture of Quebec, and meet some extremely interesting characters living in the remote village of Three Pines. The continuity of the series is as usual associated with the central characters, but these seem like real people who evolve and change with time. The mysteries almost take a second place to the characters and the context. The books are about friendship, growth, complex personalities, conflict resolution, and psychological flaws. Everyone is both good and bad, strong and weak, objective while prejudiced, emotionally frail in certain ways while courageous in others. The prose is wonderfully constructed and a pleasure to read.

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The English vs. the French in Quebec

I was looking through my Audible library recently and found that I did not have Chief Inspector Gamache/three Pines Book 6 BURY YOUR DEAD. I had all other of Louise Penny's novels. After finishing listening to it I believe it is my favorite of the 15 novel series. Louise Penny and Karin Slaughter are my favorite modern detective novel writers. I love Penny's marvelous bevy of repeat characters.

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Wonderful Entry in a Wonderful Series

I am an enthusiastic fan of Louise Penny and Chief Inspector Gamache. This particular entry in the series takes us away from Three Pines and to Quebec. This is a nice change of pace, and there's some lovely details about the history and culture of Quebec. Not perhaps the best introduction to the series -- you really should start with "Still Life", but a good addition to the series.

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    5 out of 5 stars

The Best So Far

I've listened to all of the Chief Inspector Gamache novels, and this is the best so far. I enjoy series mysteries until the author tires of them and that fatigue becomes obvious. But Louise Penny obviously loves these characters, so not only is she not tired of them, she is actually in the early stages of romance with them, when we're still learning things about their character, their psychological makeup, their pasts and relationships. Bury Your Dead combines a search for the historical Samuel Champlain with the painful--and current--death of Agent Morin, the young agent who picked up the priceless violin in the "hermit's" cabin in the previous novel, and entranced his fellow officers with his gift. Penny explores Gamache's deep sense of responsibility for the young agent, who was soon to be married, and his anguish over the pain the failed operation has caused his second-in-command Jean Guy, and the other people in his department. Penny has created in Armand Gamache a character who is sufficiently flawed to be believably human, but one who represents the best that human beings can aspire to. I love these novels, and this is the best one yet!

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another wonderful tale

I am completely hooked on this series, in love with the characters, fascinated by the world that Louise Penny has created. This novel also offers a lot of Quebec history and we spend time in one of my favorite places - Quebec City, particularly the old walled city. I enjoyed the interwoven plots -- 3 of them -- and the further development of both Gamache's and Beauvoir's characters. I was a bit frustrated with the extensive recap of a previous story -- that usually drives me crazy in series. Here, though there's enough that's new that it's not all repetition. Most of all, I love Penny's exploration of the human heart. So many wonderful insights about grief and loss and love and hate. I like that her characters have depth and complexity. But they're also reliable -- Ruth, Clara, Gabri, Myrna. How I wish I could sit with them all in front of the fire at the Bistro and eat some of that amazing food that Penny is always writing about. Her books make me hungry - for more! Can't wait to download the next one.

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