The protagonist of Penny’s long-running detective series, Armand Gamache is the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, the province’s police force. Humane and intellectual, Gamache is a firm believer in emotion as a motivator for crime. Gamache is devoted to his wife and two adult children and a beloved mentor to his homicide team. Penny reflects often that his appearance does not match his grisly profession: “[H]e looked more like a distinguished professor in his mid-fifties than the head of the most prestigious homicide unit in Canada” (3). At this stage of the series, Gamache has experienced a profound personal loss that nearly ended his life and career. His sense of personal injury is compounded by the ongoing professional friction with his superiors inside the Sûreté. It is clear to him that some of them have a higher tolerance for corruption than he does, though proving this takes many investigations over the series.

Bury Your Dead sees Gamache attempting to retreat from homicide for the world of historical research, reading about the Battle of Québec to test an obscure theory. He stays with his beloved mentor, Émile Comeau, underlining that he feels in need of guidance.