LOUISE PENNY is the bestselling author of seven previous novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, including the New York Times and Globe and Mail bestsellers. Still Life, her debut novel, earned the John Creasey Dagger, as well as the Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys Awards, and was voted one of Deadly Pleasures magazine's top five mystery/crime novels of the decade. Penny was the first novelist to win the Agatha Award for Best Novel four times: for A Fatal Grace, The Cruelest Month, and The Brutal Telling (all of which also won the Anthony Award for Best Novel), and for Bury Your Dead (which won the Dilys, Arthur Ellis, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero Awards).