Tag: Louise Penny

Day 180: The Beautiful Mystery

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Cover for The Beautiful MysteryHundreds of years ago, a small order of monks travelled across the ocean from Europe to Canada and hid itself in the wilderness of Quebec away from the Inquisition. There they remained hidden until two years before the beginning of The Beautiful Mystery, when an inferior compact disk of stunningly beautiful Gregorian chants appeared and became popular worldwide. Reporters eventually traced the origins of the CD back to the remote monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. Pilgrimages to the monastery began, but no one was admitted. At the beginning of Louise Penny’s latest novel, two men, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir, arrive at the monastery and they are admitted. They have been summoned to investigate the murder of the monastery’s prior.

Gamache and Beauvoir soon discover that there is a serious rift among the monks, between the men who agree with the dead prior that the monastery should make another CD so it can pay for badly needed repairs and the men who believe the CD has ruined their peace. But it is much more difficult to determine who murdered the prior, who was also the choir conductor. A critical piece of evidence may be a scrap of paper the prior was clutching when he died, which contains neumes–the precursors to musical notation that indicate the rise and fall of the chants–and nonsense syllables in Latin.

Gamache’s and Beauvoir’s work is interrupted by the arrival of their superior, Superintendent Francoeur, a man who hates Gamache and is determined to destroy him. Soon it becomes obvious that his intent is to drive a wedge between Gamache and Beauvoir.

As always with Penny, the mystery is atmospheric and absorbing. I haven’t been happy lately, though, with the direction she has been taking Beauvoir.

Day 160: A Rule Against Murder

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Cover for A Rule Against MurderI am going to read Louise Penny’s latest soon, so in preparation I thought I’d review an earlier Inspector Gamache book, A Rule Against Murder. Inspector Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie are celebrating their anniversary at the remote but luxurious Manoir Bellechasse. The only other guests are the strange Finney family, there for a reunion. They intend to erect a statue on the grounds of the resort to the family patriarch, who is deceased. The Finneys are wealthy and privileged but treat each other and others with disdain.

Julia Martin, daughter of the family matriarch, Irene Finney, is attending the reunion for the first time in years, after her husband has been disgraced and imprisoned following a financial scandal. She is in the midst of divorcing him. The older brother is spiteful and his wife seems insecure. Gamache is surprised to find that “Spot” and his wife Claire, for whom the family has been waiting, are actually his friends from Three Pines, Peter and Clara Morrow. Unfortunately, Peter seems to revert to bad behavior under the family’s influence. The only pleasant member of the family is Irene’s second husband.

One night after a terrible storm they find Julia’s body, which has been crushed by the statue of her father. Gamache and his team must find out who murdered her, but they also must figure out how the huge statue could even have been moved.

As usual, I find Penny’s novels atmospheric and well written. Penny also creates believable and interesting characters. I am looking forward to reading her next book.

Day Seven: Bury Your Dead

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Cover for Bury Your DeadLast fall I read about the series of mysteries by Louise Penny, some of which have received numerous mystery book awards. They all take place in Quebec and feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Bury Your Dead is not the first in the series, but it is the first one I read, and I wrote the most about it in my book diary. However, if you decide to read these books, you should make a special effort to read them in order, starting with Still Life. I did not, and I was sorry at times, because most of the books are set in the same small, charming village and you can sometimes tell who the murderer of a previous book is just by who is missing from the village in a later book. Also Bury Your Dead in particular reveals the outcome of the previous book, because Inspector Gamache decides that he perhaps did not get it right that time and sends his second to re-investigate.

That being said, I think I liked Bury Your Dead best of all the Penny books I have read, because it partly takes place in the fascinating Quebec City. That is where Inspector Gamache is recovering from a case that turned out horribly, during which he was badly injured.

He discovers a delightful building in the city, the Literary and Historical Society, full of old books and documents about the English population of the city, and he meets some of the historians. Then the body of a French-heritage historian who has been obsessed with finding the missing remains of Samuel de Champlain is found in the society’s basement, and the board of the society asks him to investigate. The board is particularly worried because there has been some strain between the English minority and the French majority in the city, some of it fostered by the dead historian.

In the meantime, Gamache has asked his second, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who is also on leave, to return to the small village of Three Pines and find what they missed in the last case, as he is convinced they made a mistake.

While this is all happening, Gamache is haunted by the memories of the young agent who was held captive and died during the incident that injured both Gamache and Beauvoir.

The book skillfully follows both plots and flashbacks to the investigation that went wrong. The characters in this series are well developed and interesting. The plots are tight and the mysteries difficult to figure out. The small village setting could become problematic, because the cast of characters is limited, but so far I have been enjoying the books.