In the height of summer, the guests descended. . . .
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, are celebrating their anniversary at the luxurious, isolated Manoir Bellechasse. But the Finney family—rich, cultured, and respectable—has also arrived for a celebration of their own. As some surprising guests turn up, and a terrible storm leaves behind a dead body, Gamache soon learns that the seemingly peaceful lodge is a place where visitors come to escape their past, until that past catches up with them.