Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

Kingdom of the Blind: A Novel by Louise Penny --- 389 pages including Acknowledgements.

The latest in Canadian author Penny's bestselling suspense mystery series featuring Chief Inspector Armond Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, picks up just months after the conclusion of Glass Houses (2017) with Gamache still suspended from duty and under investigation for the actions he took to track down and eliminate a drug cartel bringing a potent new opioid into Canada.

 Now as a major snow storm in barreling down on the province,  Gamache and Myrna Lander, another recurring character from the small village Three Pines, and a seemingly guileless young man from Montreal, Benedict Pouliot, have all been summoned to meet a notary at an isolated, tumbledown old house some miles distant from Three Pines. There, they are informed that they have been named as executors of the will of a woman who none of them have ever met. The old lady’s death does not appear to be suspicious but the bequests in her will are so grandiose it would seem she must have been delusional --- except the notary is convinced she was not. When the executors meet the old lady's three adult children. they learn the woman's bizarre claims are founded on a contested inheritance dating back over a century between two branches of a wealthy Jewish family in Austria. 

But what seems at first like a pleasant distraction for Gamache turns serious when one of the old woman's adult children is found murdered under the debris of the collapsed house.

Meanwhile, Gamache and his team are still desperate to find the cache of lethal carfentanil that went missing somewhere in the city --- which Gamache deliberately allowed to go missing so as not to tip off the cartel to the trap being set for them.  Gamache's latest protégé, police cadet Amelia Choquet, found with drugs in her possession, is dismissed from the Academy and returns to her old life on the street, where she begins searching for the carfentanil. Her only lead: someone called David is getting ready to flood Québec with the drug. 

Another well wrought tale from Penny, who again walks the high wire balancing small town cozy and big city thriller.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Washington Post.

Click HERE to read the review from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.