Still Life by Louise Penny

Still Life by Louis Penny
(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1)
293 pages / 9 hrs, 38 mins

"Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal and yet a world away. Jane Neal, a long-time resident of Three Pines, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it's a tragic hunting accident and nothing more but Gamache smells something foul this holiday season...and is soon certain that Jane died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter."
--from the publisher

I'm finally reading the first in the series.  It's an engaging introduction to the interesting characters Penny created and a unique mystery.  It is also the winner of several awards.  I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny
(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #10)
373 pages / 12 hrs, 4 mins

Inspector Gamache agrees to leave his restful retirement in a quaint village to help his neighbor Clara Morrow.  She explains that her husband, Peter, has failed to return home.  "Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache's help to find him."

"Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir...they journey deeper and deeper into Quebec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow...To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it The Land God gave to Cain. And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul."   --from the publisher

What an interesting book!  Penny knows how to weave a mystery and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Although I'm not reading the series in order, she gives enough background information so the characters are familiar to me.

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny --- 373 pages

This is the eighth volume in Penny's acclaimed mystery series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamiche and his second-in-command, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec.

Each installment in the series features a musical motif; in this mystery, Gamache and Beauvoir are called to investigate the murder of a monk in the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups (Saint Gilbert Among the Wolves), hidden deep in the Canadian wilderness miles from the nearest settlement. Here two dozen cloistered monks live a simple life of work and prayer. They grow vegetables, raise chickens, make chocolate-covered blueberries to sell --- and they sing. The monks have recently been rediscovered by the outside world, after releasing an album of Gregorian chant. Their glorious voices, raised in these ancient religious songs, have had a powerful effect on people all over the world. The murdered monk was the choir director. His proposal to record another album, and send the monks out into the world as musical missionaries, created a painful schism in the once peaceful community and resulted in his murder. The only suspects are his brother monks.

Gamache is also concerned about Beauvoir's mental state, as Jean-Guy has only just recovered from an addiction to painkillers brought on by the trauma he suffered in a previous case, in which a number of officers under Gamache's command were injured or killed. Both he and Gamache have reason to suspect that the tragedy was engineered by corruption at the highest levels of the Sûreté. When one of the Superintendents they suspect is involved in the corruption suddenly descends upon the monastery and begins to interfere in the investigation, the Chief Inspector fears that his enemies are targeting Beauvoir in order to destroy Gamache before he can expose their crimes.