54 pages • 1 hour read
Louise PennyThe Nature of the Beast
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 37-45Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 37 Summary
Gamache and Jean-Guy drive home, speculating about the identity of the unknown fourth individual who was involved in the supergun plot. Possibilities include the CSIS agents, Rosenblatt, or even Al Lepage. They also learn that a major Canadian broadcasting company now knows about the supergun and will run a story about it in a matter of hours. As soon as the gun’s existence is made public, many individuals with bad intentions, including arms dealers and terrorists, will join the race to find the plans. Anyone who locates the plans will effectively possess the means to create a weapon of mass destruction.
Gamache ponders the utility of taking Fleming out of prison to gain more information about the locations of the plans. Jean-Guy finds this idea shocking and counters that Fleming will “kill again. And again” (318). Gamache is distraught over the choice and reveals the grotesque information that has been withheld from the public: that Fleming created a seven-headed “Beast of Babylon” by severing the heads of his seven victims. Even though he is one of the few who knows what Fleming is capable of, Gamache believes that finding the plans is absolutely vital. In a burst of emotion, Jean-Guy suddenly announces that his wife (Gamache’s daughter) is pregnant. The stakes are extremely high for both men. As they reflect on their conversation with Fleming, Gamache and Jean-Guy conclude that a clue about the whereabouts of the plans must be concealed within the text of the play. However, they can’t figure out the hidden message.
Chapter 38 Summary
Gamache explains his risky plan to Lacoste and Agent Adam Cohen. He wants Cohen to go to the maximum-security prison and sneak John Fleming back to Three Pines. Gamache knows the plan is very dangerous for Cohen, but since Cohen used to work at the prison, he is the only one who can make it happen.The prison is a two-hour drive away, and the news story is set to break in three hours. They decide to dispatch Cohen to the prison so that he will be in position to remove Fleming from the prison if necessary. However, they desperately hope that they will find the plans themselves first and will not have to take such a risk. Gamache also plans to try another unusual tactic: assembling the community for a read-through of the play. In this scenario, the actors will read the script without putting on a full performance. He hopes that this will allow him to see something he missed by merely reading the play himself. Gamache also questions Rosenblatt directly one more time, demanding to know if Rosenblatt was involved with Project Babylon and if he was the fourth conspirator. Rosenblatt continues to deny this.
Chapter 39 Summary
The reading of the play concludes at 5:23 pm. The news story will air at 6:00 pm, and Cohen has been instructed to enter the prison and get Fleming at that time unless he hears otherwise. He is in position and waiting. Unfortunately, no one has any new ideas after hearing the play, and everyone is growing more and more desperate. Finally, Gamache realizes that the small town where Fleming’s play is set is actually a version of Three Pines. The characters in the play repeatedly go to the hardware store; in Three Pines, the town bistro was formerly a hardware store.
Gamache questions Gabri and Olivier, the owners of the bistro. They describe how they converted the old hardware store after purchasing the building. In the renovation, they uncovered many old pieces of paper. Gamache, assisted by Rosenblatt, looks through the papers, hoping to find the plans. Jean-Guy begins to help but is summoned by Ruth.
Chapter 40 Summary
Gamache does not find the plans amidst the documents. Ruth tells Jean-Guy that she knows where the plans are. The play’s title (She Sat Down and Wept) is seemingly random, since no one weeps in the play. However, Ruth thinks back to the night when she refused to draw an image or write poetry for Fleming’s project. After Fleming left, she went to the church, sat in a pew, and wept from shame. Jean-Guy and Gamache simultaneously realize that Fleming could have watched her do this. They surmise that the title of the play alludes to these events. Rushing to the church, they find the plans for the supergun hidden under the pew where Ruth had sat. By the time they find the plans, it is 6:00 pm.
Chapter 41 Summary
At 6:00 pm, Adam Cohen hears the news story that a supergun has been found in the woods in Quebec. He goes into the prison and tells a guard that he has authorization to transport Fleming to a different location. Because the other guard knows and trusts Cohen, he allows him to take Fleming out of the prison. Fleming is restrained and heavily guarded. Meanwhile, Gamache and Jean-Guy need to confirm the veracity of the plans, so they show them to Rosenblatt. Mary and Sean interrupt them and also confirm that the plans are genuine. As Gamache is dialing Cohen to tell him to abort the plan, Mary pulls a gun on him.
Mary now finally admits that she was indeed the fourth conspirator, the person who took the photo of Bull, Couture, and Fleming. She demands the plans, but Jean-Guy tosses the document into the fireplace. A struggle ensues, and Jean-Guy and Gamache overpower Sean. Rosenblatt grabs the gun that Mary has dropped and hands it to Gamache. Mary and Sean flee the scene. Gamache is more preoccupied with getting word Adam Cohen, but the confrontation has caused a delay. However, Gamache and Lacoste realize that their calls to Cohen’s phone are not going through. Cohen has loaded Fleming into the back of his car and does not realize that Fleming has tampered with his device to prevent him from receiving calls or messages. Becoming suspicious, he changes the settings and immediately receives and answers a call from Lacoste and Gamache. As Lacoste and Gamache issue their instructions for Cohen to abort the plan and return Fleming to the prison, they can hear Fleming screaming in rage. Cohen confirms that he has received the orders and uses Gamache’s name, saying, “I hear you, Monsieur Gamache [...] He’s going back” (354).
Chapter 42 Summary
With the plans safely destroyed, Gamache, Rosenblatt, and the other villagers gather and reflect. The gun will be disassembled; without the plans and the firing mechanism, it poses little threat. The group is shocked when Gamache explains that he has no intention of pursuing Mary and Sean. He also doesn’t think they are responsible for the murders of Laurent and Antoinette. Although Rosenblatt having intervened to help Gamache and Jean-Guy during the confrontation with the CSIS agents, he remains a suspect. The group disbands, but Gamache remains alert. When Gamache sees someone hurrying through the village a few minutes later, he, Jean-Guy, and Lacoste pursue the individual.
Chapter 43 Summary
Gamache and his colleagues walk to Gamache’s home, where they confirm that the firing mechanism and a gun have been stolen. They can hear someone running through the woods, and they pursue the suspect, who turns out to be Brian Fitzgerald, Antoinette’s partner. Brian attempts to shoot them with the stolen gun, but it fails to fire, and the police officers subdue him.
Chapter 44 Summary
Adam Cohen returns to Three Pines and meets with Gamache, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle Lacoste. They update him on the case. Brian murdered both Laurent and Antoinette. For years, Brian had been fascinated by the story of Gerald Bull and the rumors of a supergun. When Guillaume Couture died, a photo was published in his obituary, and Brian realized that Couture had collaborated with Bull. Brian moved to Three Pines and began a relationship with Antoinette in order to gain access to the house where Couture had lived. His goal was to search for the plans.
Over the years, Brian failed to find the plans, but he did eventually find the script of Fleming’s play. He “started and even fueled the controversy surrounding the Fleming play [because] he wanted the controversy and distraction” (365). Brian was present on the night that Laurent revealed his discovery of the gun; while everyone else dismissed the claim, Brian believed it. He killed Laurent to prevent anyone else from becoming curious about the gun. He still needed to find the plans and the firing mechanism, so he continued searching the house, and when Antoinette caught him searching, he killed her as well. After the discovery of the plans, Gamache deduced that Brian was the murderer. He laid a trap by leaving a replica of the firing mechanism in his home, and Brian stole it, believing it to be the true mechanism. Gamache also took the firing pin out of the gun, so that when Brian took that as well, he was not actually armed. This ruse allowed Gamache and his colleagues to successfully arrest and subdue Brian, who confessed to everything.
Chapter 45 Summary
Gamache and Jean-Guy discuss Professor Rosenblatt’s motives; they still are not clear on the nature of his involvement or his relationship with Mary and Sean. Before Rosenblatt left the village, Gamache warned him that he would continue to keep an eye on him. Meanwhile, American authorities have been informed about Al Lepage and have come to arrest him. Before Al is taken away, he forgives Ruth for sending John Fleming to him, explaining, “You saw evil and wanted nothing to do with it. But I invited him in” (371). Ruth invites Evie Lepage, who is now alone and devastated, to come and live with her.
With the case wrapped up, Gamache offers to tell Reine-Marie the full details of the atrocities that Fleming committed. He has always concealed this information in order to protect her. However, Reine-Marie is interrupted by the news that her daughter Annie (Jean-Guy’s wife) is pregnant, and the novel ends on a note of joy and hope.
Chapters 37-45 Analysis
In the novel’s final section, the timeline and urgency of the plot lead to a greater emphasis upon the theme of Compromises for the Greater Good, for as horrific as Gamache finds Fleming’s past crimes to be, the dire situation at hand causes him to implement a plan that relies upon the serial killer’s help. This scene is just one of many in which Penny openly explores deep ethical questions by maneuvering two characters into a philosophical debate. As desperation forces Gamache to consider the near-unthinkable possibility of taking Fleming out of prison, Jean-Guy is horrified, and the two men debate the ethics of the complex and ambiguous situation, replaying another version of various moral debates that occurs much earlier in the novel. This interaction intensifies the villagers’ previous debate over the ethics of performing Fleming’s play, as well as Ruth’s ethical quandary over sending Fleming to Al in order to protect herself. By this later stage in the plot, however, the stakes are much higher, for Gamache is now “contemplating being an accessory to a slaughter, for the greater good” (319). This section of the novel demonstrates the uncomfortable reality that moral choices are often unclear, and even someone with as much integrity as Gamache may be forced to make terrible concessions.
Significantly, Fleming’s help is necessary in one form or another, for the text of his play proves instrumental in allowing Gamache to find the plans. Thus, the scene offers a metafictional moment in which a literary text (much like The Nature of the Beast itself) offers crucial insight into the larger story in which it is framed. Because of the intricacy of the plot, finding the plans is a separate goal from finding the killer, but once the immediate threat of the plans is resolved, Gamache refocuses his keen powers of deduction to determine that Brian is the murderer. With this shift from one aspect of the plot to another, the character of Gamache functions as a classical detective who relies upon deduction rather than technology to solve his cases, but he demonstrates his great versatility when he is able to apply such skills to mysteries that transcend the traditional murder-mystery plot. Penny’s decision to wrap up the larger political aspects of the plot first and conclude by revealing the killer implies that The Nature of the Beast is at heart a traditional murder-mystery novel. As the narrative shifts back to the time-worn and comfortable conventions of a singular detective’s search for the truth, the novel delivers upon every implied promise of its inciting incident and rising action.
Agent Lacoste’s summary of the mystery falls in line with this traditional emphasis upon deduction when she states, “The killer had to have been in the bistro that day when Laurent came in […] it also had to be someone who didn’t know the boy well. And it had to have been someone who knew that Antoinette would be alone that night” (365). As the chain of logic reveals, the killer is not really an evil mastermind; instead, Brian Fitzgerald is unflatteringly described as a “man who’d searched, like a pirate for treasure, like a leech for someone else’s blood” (362). This description makes it clear that far from being a modern-day Moriarty, Brian is a fairly mediocre and unimpressive man whose actions were motivated solely by greed, for he was willing to kill an innocent child and even his own partner in pursuit of his goal. The conclusion of the murder investigation therefore holds a philosophical connection to the novel’s larger critique of warfare and military conflict, for the author attempts to demonstrate that evil can be perpetuated whenever individuals operate solely in their own interest and lose touch with empathy and humanity.
The arrest of the killer and the destruction of the plans for the supergun largely resolve the conflict of the plot and restore tranquility to the village. However, the novel’s conclusion leaves a measure of ambiguity within several different plot elements. Although Fleming is back in prison, he knows that Gamache is the one responsible for sending him back, and given the fact that this novel is part of a larger series, this foreboding detail hints that Fleming may still pose a lingering threat to the protagonist of the series. This detail is particularly meaningful in a novel that explores the complex ways in which past events resurface to trouble the present, and thus, the conclusion sets the stage for possible future developments in the series. Moreover, the motives of the CSIS agents and of Professor Rosenblatt are never fully established. Rosenblatt’s final words to Gamache before he leaves Three Pines are, “The clock hasn’t been stopped. It has simply been reset” (370). This cryptic warning deliberately disrupts the closure of the plot and raises new questions that can only be explored in future installments to the series. However, despite these strategically disruptive elements, the novel ends on a largely hopeful note. The news of Annie’s pregnancy and the hope of a new child can be interpreted as a sign of renewal, especially given that the plot itself is focused on solving the reasons behind the tragic loss of a child. While nothing can reverse the fact that Laurent’s life has been cut short, the pregnancy alludes to themes of rebirth and a brighter future: a symbol that is all the more significant given the novel’s setting in the waning of the year.
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By Louise Penny
