A Better Man by Louise Penny

A Better Man: A Novel by Louise Penny --- 437 pages including Acknowledgements. #15 in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series.

The air is thick with anxiety as Sûreté du Québec agents gather in the conference room for the Monday morning meeting of the homicide department.

Today is Armand Gamache’s first day back since his suspension and then demotion from Chief Superintendent of the entire force, to his former  position as head of homicide. Complicating matters, he will be temporarily sharing the duties with his former second-in-command and current son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who will shortly be leaving to take up a new job in private industry in Paris. And taking Gamache's daughter Annie, and his grandson Honoré, with him.

Making matters worse, a storm of toxic social media attacks is being orchestrated against Gamache by his political enemies as he faces his first assignment – to find a missing woman, whose abusive husband is the immediate suspect in Vivienne Godin's disappearance.

The search for Vivienne is complicated by catastrophic spring flooding throughout Quebec. Ice jams are threatening the bridges, and the pressure of the water is threatening dams.  Gamache's own village of Three Pines is at risk, as the usually sleepy Rivière Bella Bella breaks its banks. A general emergency is declared and desperate efforts are underway to save towns and cities, dams and bridges and power plants from destruction..

As Gamache and Beauvoir lead the search for Vivienne, they develops a profound empathy for her distraught father. Vivienne makes them think of Annie. Suddenly the case becomes personal. Each is haunted by the terrible question, how would you feel, if it was your daughter, your wife?

As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught rages, Gamache finds a body in the Bella Bella, just upriver from Three Pines. That close to home. The victim's father, overwhelmed with grief and guilt, becomes obsessed with vengeance.

Now the question nagging Gamache and Beauvoir shifts.

What would you do, to prevent your loved one's killer from getting away with it?

With each novel in the series, Penny just gets better and better. 

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the Christian Science Monitor.

Click HERE to read the review from the San Diego Union Tribune.

Click HERE for the review from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette.

Click HERE to read the review from criminalelement.com

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.  

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.

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

Glass Houses: A Novel by Louise Penny --- 391 pages with Author's Note

"There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts." 
--- Mahatma Gandhi

Penny’s 13th novel featuring Chief Superintendent. Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is as riveting a tale as Penny's many fans have come to expect. The novel opens with Gamache, the chief witness for the prosecution of a  brutal murder, being grilled by the Crown Prosecutor in a stifling hot Montreal courtroom. 

The presiding judge Maureen Corriveau, who’s trying her first homicide case, is taken aback by the animosity between the Crown Prosecutor and his own witness. She begins to suspect that something untoward is going on in her courtroom. 

The story of the murder, committed in Gamache's home village of Three Pines, is slowly revealed in flashbacks. It begins at a Halloween party, where the evening's merriment is disturbed by the presence of a silent figure robed and masked all in black. The next day the figure shows up in the middle of the village green, standing silent, motionless, and staring. And the next day, and the next. The entire village is unnerved. Then, the figure is gone, as mysteriously as it appeared. The village begins to relax --- until Madame Gamache finds a black-masked and robed body in the cellar under the village church. 

The shocking death brings back memories of other misdeeds that plagued the village in the distant past and seems to be related to Gamache's current preoccupation: the out of control opioid epidemic and the violent drug cartels fighting to control the trade are overwhelming the forces of law and order.  

All the familiar and much-loved characters from Three Pines and the Sûreté are present and each contributes in his or her own way to the shattering climax.

Click HERE to read an interview with Louise Penny from CBS News.

Click HERE to read a review from the Seattle Times.

Click HERE to read a review from the Washington Post.

Click HERE to read a review from the Christian Science Monitor.

A Great Reckoning by Louis Penny

A Great Reckoning: A Novel by Louise Penny --- 389 pages

Another beautiful book in Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series (number 12 to be precise), set in Quebec.  It's almost impossible to categorize Penny's work: these are crime novels in one sense, but only in the same sense that Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is a crime story.

They are explorations of what it means to be human, the mismatch between what happens and what we think is happening, and the small but sometimes fatal difference that can make.  In a recent interview Penny says her books are not about murder but about poetry, and that she works through six or seven drafts to pare down her story and her words until only the most essential remain. One reviewer suggests that the essence of this book is what the old owe to the young in their care.  Those who have followed the Chief Inspector through his career will know that he has labored long to root out corruption in the Sûreté du Québec. Now he has left retirement to become the Commander of the Sûreté Academy, the college where new recruits receive their training --- and he suspects --- the tainted source from which the corruption flows.  And the first lesson Gamache attempts to teach these cadets is "Don't believe everything you think." 

If you've never read Louise Penny, start at the beginning with Still Life, and enjoy a literary feast!

Click HERE to watch an interview with Louise Penny at the Book Expo America 2016.

Click HERE to read the review from the Washington Post.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Times.

The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny --- 376 pages

Each addition to Louise Penny's masterful Chief Inspector Gamache series continues to surpass expectations. The eleventh book, The Nature of the Beast, is an intricately woven mystery that combines the iconic village of Three Pines, the familiar continuing cast of characters, a brutal killing, a deadly secret lurking in the woods, and international intrigue. Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec, savours the peace and simplicity of his retirement in Three Pines. But that hardwon refuge is threatened when a nine year old boy with a runaway imagination is found dead in a ditch soon after announcing he has found a monster with a giant gun lurking in the woods outside the village. Only Gamache begins to suspect this time the boy was telling the truth.

In a brief afterword, Penny explains that her story is based on the life of a real person, the controversial Canadian arms designer, Geald Bull, murdered in Brussels, Belgium in 1990; a case that has never been --- officially --- solved.

Click HERE to read a review from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the article on the real Gerald Bull from Wikipedia.

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

The Long Way Home: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny --- 373 pages

I stumbled onto Louis Perry's Chief Inspector Gamache series just a few years ago and I was hooked from the start. She writes murder mysteries, but she turns them into meditations on the human condition, and the nature of good and evil, and whether the soul can survive the slings and arrows of misfortune.

This tenth book in the series is very interesting. The complex story arc of the previous nine novels culminated with a shattering intensity in last year's How The Light Gets In, which may well be Penny's masterpiece. Now, in The Long Way Home, Armand Gamache and those he cares about are trying to pick up the pieces and remake their lives. Gamache is still coming to terms with all that has happened, and feeling his way into his new life of retirement in the village of Three Pines, when fate and a friend in desperate need force him back out into the world in search of a man with a sin-sick soul, on a journey to a desolate land at the edge of the world, a journey that will end in damnation or redemption.

Fans of  P.D. James, Colin Dexter, James Lee Burke or Donna Leon may enjoy Louise Penny.

Click HERE and HERE to read two excellent reviews of The Long Way Home.





 

The Beautiful Mystery: a Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, by Louise Penny, 400 pages

The Beautiful Mystery: a Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, by Louise Penny, 400 pages

I've heard good things about Louise Penny, so I got this audiobook, not realizing it's #8 in a series.  It didn't prevent me from understanding the current action/mystery, but it might have provided some helpful background for the characters and their conflicts.

At a remote, fairly mysterious monastery in the wilds of Quebec, a cloistered monk is murdered.  Chief Inspector Gamache and Beauvoir stay until they can figure out which monk did the murdering.  The characters are wonderfully developed, as is the story, and if you have trouble pronouncing French, I highly recommend the audiobook version.

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny --- 405 pages

It's not often that a murder mystery and tale of political corruption leaves you with tears of joy at the ending, but Louis Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series is no ordinary mystery series.

This is the eighth book in a series that just keeps getting better. Christmas is approaching but for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, the joy of the season is overshadowed by the deadly power struggle going on inside the Sûreté, which he begins to suspect is linked to rampant, longstanding political corruption in the province. When he receives a call for help from an old friend in the small, isolated village of Three Pines, about a guest who has failed to arrive for a holiday visit, he welcomes the chance to escape from the city. But this case is also much more complicated than it appears, for the missing woman was once world famous, although now almost a recluse and mostly forgotten by the public. As the missing pieces of both puzzles fall slowly into place, the Chief Inspector and his last few loyal friends and colleagues need a safe, untraceable refuge. But is even Three Pines remote enough to hold off pursuit while Gamache secures the evidence he needs? Or will the peaceful village and its inhabitants become collateral damage in the final showdown when vengeful enemies close in on Gamache?

Elegant, evocative and pyschologically compelling, Louise Penny is a worthy succesor to mystery writers like Colin Dexter and P.D. James.

Check out Louise Penny's web site at http://www.louisepenny.com/

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.