Louise Penny: A Fatal Grace

There’s a fair amount of curling in A Fatal Grace , a sport I happen to love. I played it a bit in Thunder Bay and Montreal and respect the focus and poise the players have, never mind their ability to make amazing shots under pressure. It’s a thrilling sport, despite what Inspector Beauvoir might think. I visited the Sutton Curling Club and spoke to Wayne Clarkson, Ralph Davidson and Bob Douglas, who explained strategy to me. Thank you for your time and patience.

I met Anne Perry at a mystery conference in Canada before my first book, Still Life , had been published. She agreed to read it and became the first established writer to endorse the book, a massive event for any debut novelist. Anne Perry is lovely, both inside and out, and I’m deeply grateful to her for giving me the time of day, never mind the endorsement. I’m extremely grateful to all the other writers who also endorsed the book. This is no small task, having to read the whole thing on top of the million other calls on their time. But Margaret Yorke, Reginald Hill, Ann Granger, Peter Lovesey, Deborah Crombie and Julia Spencer-Fleming all gave me that time. And I will do it for others, if asked.

Many thanks to the wonderful Kim McArthur and her team.

And finally, thank you to Teresa Chris, my agent, for her wisdom and robust humour, and to Sherise Hobbs of Headline and Ben Sevier of St Martin’s Press for making this book better and for doing it with such kindness and thoughtfulness.

I’m one lucky woman, and I know it.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A FATAL GRACE. Copyright © 2006 by Louise Penny. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Penny, Louise.

A fatal grace / Louise Penny.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-0-312-35256-1

1. Police—Québec (Province)—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 3. City and town life—Québec (Province)—Fiction. I. Title.

PR9199.4.P464 D43 2007

813'.6—dc22

2007007917

First published as Dead Cold in Great Britain by Headline Publishing, a division of Hodder Headline