In How the Light Gets In, Penny examines how appearances often distort the truth. Only by digging past the surface can the truth about people be uncovered—for better or worse.

Solving Constance’s murder relies on uncovering her family’s secret. Because the Ouellet quintuplets are celebrities, everyone thinks that they know the girls through the news stories about their lives. When Gamache accesses the hidden archives, he uncovers a different story, “Not the one for public consumption, but their private lives. Their real lives when the cameras turned off” (95). The midwife and parents that delivered the babies were made to look like simpletons while the government’s selected doctor took credit for the miracle birth. Everyone thought the girls had a happy life—even Ruth Zardo, hardly an optimist, thought “they always seemed so happy, so carefree” (147). In reality, the girls were rehearsed and coached into seeming happy. When Gamache watches an unedited reel of footage, he sees dozens of takes where the girls are forced to exit the home, smiling and waving. While the successful take is what was shown to the public, in the majority of the takes, the girls are banging on the door, begging to be let back in.