He visited the jail where Fleming was being held and discovered the man the warden claimed was Fleming was an impostor. The presence of those faces made him certain that Fleming was involved in the painting in some way. In the present, Gamache was already spooked by Sam’s presence in the village of Three Pines when the painting was discovered.Īs Gamache studied the strange painting, he noticed the faces of the seven people Fleming had murdered included in the work. From the beginning of his relationship with Sam, Gamache believed Sam was a psychopath, a boy with no conception of right and wrong. Gamache, however, was never entirely sure that the murder had been Fiona’s idea. She was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Sam accused his sister of formulating the plan to kill their mother by hitting her in the head with a brick. The characters are significant because Sam and Fiona were involved in the murder of their mother, Clotilde Arsenault, when they were young children. Meanwhile, Fiona Arsenault and her brother (Sam) are visiting the village of Three Pines after Fiona’s graduation from engineering school. This copy included modern items that did not exist when the piece was originally painted, indicating that it had been altered. The painting was identified as a copy of a famous painting known as The Paston Treasure, or A World of Curiosities. In the meantime, Fleming put together an intricate plan to escape jail and punish Gamache and Gamache's family for Gamache not keeping the promise.Ī treasure trove, including a painting, was found in a bricked-up portion of Myrna Landers’s loft when she decided to expand that space. Gamache had promised Fleming an early release if Fleming helped with an investigation, but Gamache reneged at the last minute. The altered painting contains triggers that the killer, John Fleming, knows will upset Gamache and remind Gamache of the role he played in keeping Fleming in jail. In the thriller A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny, the 18th installment in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, a psychopathic serial killer uses an altered copy of a famous painting nicknamed A World of Curiosities to threaten Armand Gamache and his family.

The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Penny, Louise.

A world of curiosities penny