Point of View

This story is told from the point of view of a third-person narrator who is not omniscient. His narration is limited to the information that characters choose to reveal through their thoughts or conversations. For instance, the narrator does not know what really happened on the bridge the night that Vivienne was killed. Gamache and the other investigators put together that it was Homer who was with Vivienne when she died but they are unable to determine what actually happened.

The main focus of the novel is on Gamache, but the point of view does change to focus on other characters. Sometimes these changes take place very quickly. For instance, in Chapter 14 when Myrna and Clara are keeping track of the level of the river while Gamache is supervising the digging of a trench to relieve the pressure of the river, the point of view...