Review: "The Black Wolf" Louise Penny

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By Paul Carrier

Louise Penny’s Québec-based mystery series — 20 novels and counting — has always featured a recurring cast of characters led by Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force in that Canadian province.

Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, live in the charming village of Three Pines, which has its share of quirky characters, including a famous but cranky poet and her pet duck, Rosa. The colorful locals return from one book to the next, but almost all of the novels have stand-alone plots involving investigations of all-new dastardly doings in Three Pines or elsewhere in Québec.

Now some of that has changed. The Black Wolf, released this year as the latest entry in the series, picks up where its immediate predecessor, The Gray Wolf, left off, providing an unusual example of plotting continuity from one novel to the next.

The Grey Wolf closed with the Sûreté thwarting a domestic terrorism plot to kill untold thousands by poisoning Montréal’s water supply. The Black Wolf opens with Ganache, who heads the homicide division of the Sûreté, fearing that the failed poisoning plot was only the first phase of a two-pronged assault, the second part of which has yet to materialize.

Penny weaves a suspenseful tale, initially with plenty of unanswered questions that leave Ganache — and the reader — struggling to figure out what’s going on.

Is Gamache right in assuming that the poisoning scheme was designed to deflect attention from an even more heinous act that may loom on the horizon? 

Why does a map prepared by Charles Langlois, a biologist who tipped off police to the original threat and was then murdered in a mob hit, show a doted line running from Québec into a town in Vermont that houses a commando training center?

How did Frederick Castonguay, a childhood friend of Langlois, end up buried in a shallow grave on the shore of a remote lake in northern Québec that Langlois had visited shortly before his death?

Why does Marcus Lauzon, the disgraced former deputy prime minister of Canada, who has been convicted and imprisoned as the mastermind behind the first terrorist attack, insist that he’s been framed? Lauzon claims the real culprit is someone even higher up in the government: James Woodford, the prime minister of Canada.

And what about Evelyn Tardiff? She’s the head of the unit within the Sûreté whose task is fighting organized crime, but she has been seen at an outdoor market in Montréal chatting with a crime boss. Is she a turncoat who’s working for the mob? Or has she deceived an overly trusting criminal to help her do her job in the Sûreté?

It soon becomes clear that Québec, and indeed Canada as a whole, face what may be an existential threat. The looming crisis sounds far-fetched, but also frighteningly plausible in light of recent real-world events.

Penny does a masterful job of keeping readers guessing as we try to differentiate between the good guys and the bad. I know I mistook white hats for black ones, and vice versa.

As the plot builds to a climax, Penny ratchets up the tension with quick scene changes, introducing and updating events that are underway simultaneously, or nearly so, in multiple locations. A page-turner like this makes a reader grateful for the security and camaraderie of Three Pines, even if the village is, after all, purely fictional.

Review: "The Grey Wolf," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of the homicide division of the provincial police force in Québec, has investigated his share of murders since author Louise Penny introduced him years ago in Still Life, the first of her 19 novels (to date) in the wildly  popular mystery series.

But in The Grey Wolf, the latest entry in the series, Gamache and his team may be facing a crisis far more catastrophic than solving individual slayings. A potential act of domestic terrorism may be in the works in Québec, and on a scale that could threaten the lives of thousands and create a panic that would trigger a collapse of the social order.

To make matters worse, Gamache suspects that one or more senior officers in the Sûreté du Québec, as the French-speaking province’s police department is known, may be in on the scheme. But he doesn’t know who they are or even if his fear of in-house collaborators is well-founded.

There are twists and turns aplenty as the case unfolds. In fact, the normally restrained and unflappable Gamache quickly loses his temper in the opening pages, swearing at a woman who calls him at home and setting an ominous tone for what is to come.

A biologist who may be able to help Gamache unmask the presumed conspirators is murdered while meeting with him in Montréal. Then his killer is murdered as well. Gamache wonders if those deaths are somehow linked to two seemingly unrelated murders in far-flung regions of Québec.

The top aide to the deputy prime minister of Canada quickly comes under suspicion for possible ties to a terrorist network. And a Catholic monk who may have valuable information for Gamache about the alleged conspiracy disappears from his remote monastery, destination unknown.

The investigation is sufficiently complex that Gamache dispatches his top lieutenants to Washington, Italy and France, all while trying to determine who, if anyone, high up in the Sûreté's chain of command may be complicit in plotting a crime that is almost too heinous to imagine. 

As the shocking climax draws near and time runs short, the plot jumps from one locale to another, heightening the tension on multiple fronts. Gamache and his senior agents are confused and terrified as they seek elusive answers and struggle to avert a disaster that would rock not only Québec but all of Canada.

Perry’s novels always feature a recurring cast of quirky characters who, like Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie, live in the small village of Three Pines, south of Montréal. It’s a rural town so remote that, as Penny notes in some of her novels, it doesn’t appear on any map.

The beloved locals turn up in The Grey Wolf as well, but bonhomie is in shorter supply than usual this time around. For one thing, this novel is not set in Three Pines, as some of Penny's earlier novels have been. And Québec proves to be a dark and dangerous place in The Grey Wolf. When doomsday looms, there is little time for croissants, café au lait and the good-natured banter of close friends.

Penny has announced that her 20th novel — entitled The Black Wolf — is in the offing, with a release date of Oct. 28, 2025. Does the title promise a link between the next entry and this one? The Grey Wolf’s closing lines suggest just such a connection. Time will tell.

Review: "A World of Curiosities," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

 

Having written 18 novels in her Québec-based mystery series starring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, Louise Penny has consistently shown herself to be a master of characterization and evocative writing. But in A World of Curiosities, the latest entry in the series, Penny has concocted an intricate plot that is so elaborate and fast-paced it may pack even more narrative punch than any of her previous novels.

As fans know, Gamache has held various high-level jobs in the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force of that Canadian province, including his current position as head of the Sûreté’s homicide division.

He’s a busy man indeed in A World of Curiosities. Too busy, in fact, for a thorough summary of the novel’s story line in this space.

Suffice it to say that the plot explores the murder of a drug-addicted prostitute; the potentially malevolent intent of one or both of the victim’s children as they grow into adulthood; a mass shooting at an engineering school in Montréal; the discovery of a sealed room above a bookstore in the quaint (and fictional) Québec town of Three Pines, where Gamache lives; a mysterious painting that suggests someone — perhaps Gamache and his family? — may be in grave danger; and the murder of an elderly woman whose death is initially misclassified as a suicide.

And then things get really interesting.

As shocking plot twists multiply at a rapid clip, Gamache’s team races to prevent a catastrophe. A mounting sense of impending doom settles over the proceedings in this stylishly unnerving but rewarding novel.

Review: "The Madness of Crowds," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Almost all of Louise Penny’s wildly popular Armand Gamache mysteries are set in Québec. In The Madness of Crowds, the 17th and most recent entry in the series, the top homicide investigator for Québec’s provincial police force is back on his home turf in the tiny village of Three Pines, Québec, following a sojourn in Paris in 2020’s All the Devils Are Here.

As the new novel opens, Québec has emerged from a pandemic that has many wondering whether the crippled economy can sustain the high cost of the province’s safety net. Enter Abigail Robinson, a statistician who is winning legions of fans for her proposed solution: cut costs by mandating the abortion of imperfect fetuses and forcing the elderly and the terminally ill to be euthanized.

When Robinson’s assistant is murdered during the duo’s visit to Québec, Gamache and his team learn that there may be a link between that crime and tumultuous events in Robinson's family, including the killing of her disabled sister.

Penny’s trademark mix of psychological insight, humor, intriguing characters and  a charming setting are on full display here.

Review: "All the Devils Are Here," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Louise Penny’s 16th mystery featuring Armand Gamache, head of the homicide division in Québec’s provincial police force, finds Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, living in Paris temporarily as they visit their two children and their families, who have relocated there.

All the Devils Are Here is the first of Penny’s novels to be set outside Québec. But, as always, Gamache's legendary investigative skills quickly come into play when Gamache's godfather, Stephen Horowitz, is run down while crossing a Paris street and a man is murdered in Horowitz’s apartment.

How are the two crimes related? And are they connected to the mysterious death of a journalist in Patagonia, the reopening of an abandoned mine and the dubious engineering practices of a massive French corporation with a global reach?

Review: "A Better Man," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Since Canadian author Louise Penny launched her mystery series back in 2006, protagonist Armand Gamache has survived a roller coaster of career changes within the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force in that predominantly French-speaking province.

Gamache, a thoughtful and morally upright figure, has weathered many political storms while bouncing around within the Sûreté: chief inspector in the homicide division, head of the training academy, even chief superintendent for a time. That last job placed him in command of the entire force.

In A Better Man, the newly published 15th entry in the series, Gamache is coming off a suspension and is about to be demoted to his old job as chief inspector of homicide, thanks to the controversial techniques he used to dismantle a drug ring. The powers that be in Québec politics had hoped the downgrade would be so humiliating that Gamache would resign, but he’s too self-assured, and too devoted to the Sûreté, to ride off into the sunset.

While he waits to reclaim his old job — Gamache's son-in-law will soon step down as the chief of homicide and move to France with his pregnant wife and their son — catastrophic spring flooding drenches the province, which is placed under a state of emergency. Temporarily at loose ends in his career, Gamache finds himself investigating the disappearance of a pregnant woman, Vivienne Godin.

Godin’s husband, Carl Tracey, a mean-spirited and abusive potter, insists Godin is a lush and an unfaithful wife who wandered off to points unknown, probably to hook up with a lover. But Godin’s father, a widower devoted to his only child, tells the police she was bound for his house when she vanished. Homer Godin says he is convinced that his daughter has been murdered . . . by Tracey.

Soon enough, Vivienne Godin’s bruised body turns up in a flood-swollen river. She, and her unborn child, died after Godin fell or was pushed into the frigid, raging waters. As Gamache and his agents gather evidence against the likely killer, a harrowing fear consumes them: what if they cannot prepare a case strong enough to win a conviction in court? What if the murderer goes free?

All of the elements that have made Penny a bestselling author are on display in A Better Man, a page turner that is well-plotted and graced with Penny’s signature blend of psychological insight and endearing characters. Godin’s body is found near the isolated village of Three Pines in Québec's Eastern Townships, where the bilingual Gamache lives with his wife, Reine Marie, and their two dogs. The colorful and quirky locals familiar to readers of the earlier novels in the series, including acerbic poet Ruth Zardo and her ever-present pet duck Rosa, are on hand once again.
 
Initially, A Better Man appears to be less of a whodunit than a police procedural, because once the presumed killer is identified early on, the focus shifts as investigators build their case.

But readers expect more from the likes of Penny, and she delivers with masterful plot twists. One alternative suspect emerges as the investigation continues. Then still more possible killers materialize, before the truth is revealed in the final pages.

Penny’s novels are mysteries, of course, but they focus on far more than the crimes that propel the plots. At heart, Gamache and almost all of the other recurring characters from Three Pines embody the belief that goodness, decency and integrity are core human values which triumph over time, despite sometimes daunting odds.

Each of the Gamache novels can be read independently because Penny always weaves in just enough history to bring readers up to speed about the backstory. But because so much has happened to the characters over the course of the previous 14 novels, it’s probably best for newcomers to start with Still Life, Penny’s debut.

Review: "Kingdom of the Blind," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

After all the mayhem, police corruption and bureaucratic backstabbing Armand Gamache has survived in the last 13 installments of Louise Penny’s mystery series, it’s a wonder her protagonist remains the calm, dignified presence he has been since Still Life, Penny’s first novel, hit the shelves back in 2005.

But Gamache, a bilingual francophone born and raised in Québec but educated at Oxford, finds his sangfroid sorely tested in Kingdom of the Blind, thanks to multiple crises large and small.

Formerly the chief of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, that Canadian province’s equivalent of a state police force in the United States, Gamache now runs the agency as its chief superintendent. Except for a not-so-minor problem. He has been suspended and remains under investigation for his handling of an operation that destroyed a massive drug cartel, a focal point of Penny’s 2017 novel, Glass Houses.

In the course of that case, Gamache allowed a large cache of opioids to enter Canada, because he decided that was the price he had to pay to shatter the syndicate, which he viewed as an even bigger threat. The police later retrieved most of the drugs. But now, as an internal investigation of Gamache drags on, he is desperately trying to find what’s left out there, before the deadly narcotics hit the streets of inner-city Montréal.

Penny tends to combine such big-picture themes with mysteries involving an unexplained death or two. The novels in the series often unite Gamache with friends and acquaintances from Three Pines, the isolated village in Québec where he and his wife, Reine-Marie, make their home. Such is the case here. The usual collection of likable oddballs is on hand, including famed poet Ruth Zardo and her pet duck Rosa, who always seems to be quacking “fuck, fuck, fuck.”

In this installment, Gamache, Three Pines bookstore owner Myrna Landers, and young Montréal builder Benedict Pouliot find themselves drawn together following the death of Bertha Baumgartner, an elderly woman who worked as a house cleaner in Three Pines and its environs. Despite her humble social standing, Baumgartner claimed to be a baroness.

Gamache, Landers and Pouliot never met Baumgartner, yet she named them as executors of her estate. Not only do they have no idea why they were assigned this task, but they discover that Baumgartner’s will includes seemingly improbable claims that she was a multimillionaire with valuable properties in Europe.

What first looks like nothing more than a bizarre puzzle is transformed into a criminal case when a beneficiary of Baumgartner's will is found murdered in the collapsed remains of the late woman's house.

As with all of her previous novels, Kingdom of the Blind requires the reader to think ahead . . . to decide early on what book to pick up next. That’s because Perry’s pacing will keep you transfixed and feverishly turning page after page, long after you had planned to run errands or fix supper.

The result is a quick read that is both satisfying and frustrating. Satisfying because of Penny’s psychological depth and polished plotting; frustrating because the reading experience is over all too soon.

Penny is adept at misdirection, encouraging readers to assume that one character or another is the culprit without revealing, until the final pages, who the killer is. In a novel with so many moving parts — the murder, Gamache’s professional fall from grace, the imminent release of the missing opioid stockpile, the fate of a cadet dismissed from the police academy for dealing drugs -- Penny has loose ends aplenty to tie up by novels's end. She does so with her usual skill.

What makes Kingdom of the Blind all the more satisfying is that it’s a bit grittier than its predecessors. Additionally, key characters find their lives heading in new directions following the emotion-filled climax. There’s no gratuitous violence here, but this time out, Penny pairs the predictable coziness of the novel — Gamache’s social circle always has adored sampling comfort food beside a Three Pines fireplace — with a dark, big-city realism.

Review: "Glass Houses," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Armand Gamache — well-educated, principled, and a highly skilled detective — has gone through several professional incarnations in Louise Penny’s 12 previous novels. Top homicide cop. Early (but short-lived) retiree. Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec’s training academy.

Now, in Penny’s 13th outing, Gamache has reached the pinnacle of his career, as chief superintendent of the Sûreté. That places him in command of the entire provincial police force in predominantly French-speaking Québec, a geographically massive Canadian province of eight million people.

Having ferreted out corruption within the Sûreté and survived ruthless attempts to destroy him, Gamache has decided he must gamble everything on reinventing the agency. His goal is to make it strong enough to fight a rising wave of crime by demolishing the province’s premier drug cartel, in the belief that most crime has its roots in drug abuse.

But as Gamache and his team prepare to deliver a death blow to Québec’s biggest drug lord, a painful decision arises during a trial. As a witness, Gamache must choose between testifying truthfully, which would destroy the Sûreté’s one shot at neutralizing the narcotics kingpin, or lying under oath to avoid tipping off the trafficker to the looming crackdown.

If readers have learned anything about Armand Gamache from Penny’s novels it’s that he plays everything by the book. So the possibility that he will perjure himself, or allow a large drug shipment to cross from Québec into the United States to lure the cartel into believing the Sûreté is incompetent, is a stunning turn of events.

As Gamache says at one point, quoting Mahatma Gandhi: "There is a higher court than the courts of justice and that is the court of conscience.”

Conscience figures prominently in Glass Houses, which focuses in part on a murder that occurs in the tiny (and fictional) village of Three Pines, south of Montréal. That is where Ganache and his wife, Reine-Marie, live, and it is where a visitor to the village is killed, shortly after a cobrador appears on the village green.

A what? 

The cobrador is a real-life, costumed debt collector who stalks deadbeats in contemporary Spain, to shame them into paying their bills. But the cloaked, hooded, masked cobrador who turns up in Three Pines harkens back to medieval times. (Today's Spanish cobrador is real, but Penny admits to having created the older version.) As portrayed in the novel, the earlier cobradors collected moral debts rather than financial ones. The ancient cobrador acted as a conscience, holding people accountable for grave moral infractions for which they have not atoned. That seems to be what is happening in Three Pines. But who is the cobrador?  And who is the target?

When the cobrador eventually disappears, Katie Evans, an architect from Montréal, is found murdered in a church basement. Evans is dressed as the mysterious “conscience,” so was she the cobrador? Perhaps the cobrador is still at large, having murdered Evans. But if Evans was not the cobrador, why is she found wearing the cobrador’s costume? Is it possible that the cobrador, too, has been killed but its body has yet to be found? Maybe someone else, a third party, is responsible for not one but two murders.

Penny weaves her way through all of this with great finesse. Even after a suspect has been placed on trial, the reader does not immediately learn the defendant's identity, as the novel slips back and forth in time between the killing and the subsequent trial. Nor is it immediately clear how the trial and the Sûreté’s plan to destroy Québec’s most powerful trafficker are linked, adding to the suspense as a showdown looms between cops and cartel.

The author is a gifted storyteller, not least because she leavens her narrative with a hallmark of this series: the levity and wit of a recurring cast of characters from Three Pines. The ensemble includes the wise but acerbic poet Ruth, who makes her rounds carrying a pet duck named Rosa; famed artist Clara; therapist turned bookstore owner Myrna; and Gabri and Olivier, the gay couple who run the local bistro and the village’s bed and breakfast.

The Gamache novels, by no means devoid of evil, are best-known for Penny’s emphasis on decency, friendship and psychological insight, all of it delivered in her trademark lyrical style. Glass Houses, with its intricate plot, continues that tradition, and ends with a cliff-hanger that practically screams “sequel.” Which is a very good thing indeed.

Review: "A Great Reckoning," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Armand Gamache had his hands full back in the day, before he retired as the chief of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, that Candian province's police force. Not only was he in charge of the department's murder investigations, but he almost died in the line of duty, and he played a pivotal role in ferreting out a rat's nest of corruption that was destroying the agency from within.

Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, eventually retired to the tiny, bucolic village of Three Pines, deep in the Québec countryside southeast of Montréal. The isolated hamlet has no cell-phone service and, as Louise Penny repeatedly reminds us in several of her novels, it doesn't even appear on any provincial maps.

But the thought of Gamache puttering around in the yard or spending untold hours hanging out with locals in the village bistro wouldn't make for much of a novel, at least in terms of suspense. So in this 12th installment of Penny's popular mystery series,, the famed (and former) cop finds himself in harness once again, this time as commander of the academy that trains incoming Sûreté agents.

In theory, it should be a cozy assignment, but of course that's not the case. The academy, it turns out, is the last bastion of the decay that previously plagued the entire Sûreté. Gamache is determined to set things right, by destroying the academy's brutal, authoritarian, fraud-plagued culture, which trained agents to view the public as an enemy to be subdued, rather than a citizenry to be protected.

Gamache's mission becomes all the more complex when Serge Leduc, a dishonest and malevolent professor who effectively ran the place under the previous regime, is found murdered in his rooms on campus. Leduc was shot in the head with his own gun, but the crime scene makes it clear that this was no suicide.

As is usually the case in a good mystery, potential suspects abound.

Did a cadet at the academy murder Leduc? Or a fellow professor, such as the lonely, broken Michel Brébeuf? Could the local mayor, who admits to having prayed for Leduc's death, have killed him? Perhaps Gamache himself pulled the trigger. The former homicide chief despised Leduc, and only kept him on as a faculty member to give Gamache time to collect evidence against Leduc and pave the way for his prosecution.

The murder investigation takes an odd turn, thanks to an old, mystifying map that had been hidden in a wall in the Three Pines bistro, only to be discovered during renovations. Shortly before Leduc is murdered, Gamache makes four copies of the map and gives them to four cadets, whom he assigns the task of deciphering who created the strangely symbolic map and why. Murder investigators later find one of those copies in Leduc's bedroom. It's the map that belonged to Amelia Choquet, a freshman cadet who quickly becomes a prime suspect.

Choquet is bright and conscientious, but a very atypical police recruit. The 19-year-old woman has a history of prostitution anf drug use. She has spiked hair, multiple piercings, myriad tattoos and an antisocial attitude. Leduc had rejected her application for admission before Gamache took over, but Gamache reversed that decision and admitted her, despite -- or perhaps because of -- a secret lurking in her family history. It is a crucially important secret, and one that is not revealed until the novel draws to a close.

A Great Reckoning is a murder mystery, of course, but it's more than that. In typical fashion, Penny, ever the master storyteller, fills her tale with myriad unanswered questions as she builds to a climax that solves every puzzle and transforms the seemingly tangential into an essential part of the storyline. In a clever bit of plotting, Penny reveals the motive for Leduc's murder some time before she finally discloses who killed him.

Fans of the Gamache novels will be pleased to see the return of Penny's cadre of regulars, with the wise, avuncular and erudite Gamache topping the list. The colorful denizens of Three Pines are back once again: partners Olivier and Gabri, who own the bistro and the bed and breakfast; Myrna, the city psychologist turned small-town bookseller; Clara, the noted artist. And, of course, Ruth, the brilliant but cranky old poet who lives with Rosa, a pet duck who always seems to be softly quacking "fuck, fuck, fuck" in her sleep.

The interplay among these close friends provides a fine counterpoint to the tension created by the investigation. We're reminded, for example, that Ruth has a habit of taking books and cups and all manner of things from her neighbors' homes, quietly and without permission. She believes in "precycling," which Penny describes as "an evolution of recycling" that allows Ruth to make use of things before people actually throw them out.

The final pages of this satisfying novel reveal secrets that fans of the series will find even more rewarding than the revelation of Leduc's murderer. Readers finally learn why Three Pines appears on no map of the province of Québec. (It's not because of the village's size.) And the very last, immensely touching sentence explains why and how Gamache had "a great reckoning" with Amelia Choquet.

Review: "The Nature of the Beast," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Armand Gamache, who took early retirement from his job as the top homicide cop in the Sûreté du Québec (the provincial police force), is living quietly with his wife Reine-Marie in the fictional Québec village of Three Pines when Louise Penny’s 11th Chief Inspector Gamache novel opens.

But Gamache still has the keen instincts that made him one of the most celebrated criminal investigators in Canada. So when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage, a local boy with an overly vivid imagination and a penchant for telling tall tales, is found dead after apparently being thrown from his bike, Gamache suspects foul play.

Reopening the case, police discover that Lepage was murdered, and then moved to the “accident” scene, because he discovered a massive missile launcher hidden in the woods outside Three Pines. Lepage had told Gamache and others about the outsize weapon before he died, but at the time, Gamache dismissed it as one of the child’s fanciful, never-ending stories about aliens and kidnappings and zombies.

This time, though, the boy who always cried wolf had seen the real thing, in the guise of a mysterious piece of military-style hardware whose metal base is emblazoned with an etching of a woman — the Whore of Babylon from the biblical Book of Revelation. She holds the reins to a winged, seven-headed monster decorated with a Hebrew inscription from Psalm 137 that reads: “By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept.”

Now the Sûreté, with Gamache’s welcome assistance, must try to determine who built the aged “supergun” in the forest and why the unused, long-abandoned weapon led to the murder of a child.

Adding to the mystery, odd coincidences begin to crop up linking the “gun” and its supposed creator, physicist Gerald Bull, to a play written by John Fleming, a convicted serial killer.

Fleming’s play is entitled I Sat Down and Wept — similar wording to that etched on the launcher. Fleming committed his first murder in 1990, the same year Bull was gunned down in Europe. And shortly after Lepage’s death, the director of a nearby theater group who had decided to produce Fleming’s play is found murdered in the home she inherited from her late uncle, an associate of Bull.

As a longtime fan who has read all of the previous novels in this series, it strikes me that Gamache, retired, is not as compelling a character as Gamache on active duty. Still, the brilliant, bilingual detective remains the thoughtful and gentlemanly figure of old, regardless of his employment status.

Throughout this series, which began with Still Life in 2006, Penny has displayed an instantly recognizable style and a satisfying knack for building suspense. She plumbs the psychological depths of her characters, while juxtaposing the elements of light and darkness buried in the human psyche.

Penny’s skills as a writer are in evidence here, as they are throughout this series, but perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of The Nature of the Beast is its pacing. The close of virtually every chapter leaves the reader wondering what will happen next, making it almost impossible to put the book down.

And there are other joys as well. Recurring motifs include the idyllic village of Three Pines, which seems so picture-perfect (except when people are being knocked off); the colorful cast of local characters (there’s no forgetting irascible poet Ruth and her pet duck Rosa); and Penny’s hunger-inducing penchant for describing all manner of scrumptious edibles in loving detail. (The denizens of Three Pines seem to spend an awful lot of time chowing down at the village bistro.)

“I love food,” Penny said in a recent Time magazine interview. She said she wanted to make the novels “really sensuous, so that when you read the books it’s not just going into your brain, it’s going into your nose and your ears and you’re smelling the café au lait, and you’re tasting the ham and brie sandwich, you’re feeling the warmth of the fire after the cold outside.”

Review: “The Long Way Home,” Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

In this 10th Chief Inspector Gamache mystery, the unthinkable has finally happened to Armand Gamache, the courtly and insightful head of the homicide division in the Québec provincial police force and — so we have been told in several previous novels — possibly the most celebrated cop in all of Canada.

Gamache has retired. And moved, with his wife Reine-Marie, to the bucolic Québec village of Three Pines, a town that time forgot whose likable and quirky residents figured prominently in Louise Penny’s previous novels. But fear not. Although Gamache, who’s only in his 50s, thinks he’s settling into a relaxing and predictable rhythm that revolves around reading, spending time with his wife and walking their beloved dog Henri, Clara Morrow has other plans.

Clara, one of the Three Pines regulars, is the wife of fellow artist Peter Morrow, whose career began to fade just as Clara’s blossomed. That took a toll on their marriage, and the duo agreed to a trial separation a year ago, with the understanding that Peter would return on the one-year anniversary of their parting, so he and Clara could reevaluate their relationship. That date has come and gone with no sign of Peter, and no message from him either. A worried Clara finally turns to Gamache for help in finding her husband.

Gamache calls in his former deputy at the Sûreté du Québec, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, to assist in the search for the missing painter. The early stages of the investigation reveal that Peter flew from Canada to Paris, Florence, Venice and Scotland before returning to Toronto and heading out to Québec City. That’s where the trail runs dry, at least initially.

When paintings that Peter created during his travels surface at his sister’s home in Toronto, Clara arranges to have them mailed to Three Pines, to mine them for clues as to Peter’s mindset and whereabouts. Over time, it starts to look like Peter may have found his way to a remote spot that is “in Québec but not of Québec,” an area “unique in the world.”

Is Peter alive? Did he commit suicide? Was he murdered? The longer the search continues, the farther afield the story takes us. Although the novel opens in Three Pines, much of the action takes place elsewhere. Québec, we are reminded, is a very large place, sections of which are isolated and not readily accessible.

Several of Penny’s beloved characters from the earlier novels return this time around. In addition to Clara Morrow, there’s Ruth Zardo, the acclaimed but misanthropic poet who makes the rounds in Three Pines with her pet duck, Rosa; Olivier and Gabri, the gay couple who operate the town’s bistro, as well as the local bed and breakfast; and Myrna Landers, a psychologist turned bookstore owner who is Clara’s confidante and Gamache’s therapist.

As always, Penny takes advantage of the unique setting she has chosen for her novels, which is a big part of the series’ charm. Although Three Pines is a largely English-speaking town in Québec’s Eastern Townships, Québec as a whole is an overwhelmingly French-speaking province. Gamache and Reine-Marie are native French speakers, but both are fully bilingual, as is Beauvoir. Thus, the dialogue in The Long Way Home is in English, with occasional French words and phrases dropped in to remind us where we are, and who we’re dealing with.

A fictional village, Three Pines remains a somewhat magical place that seems to attract psychologically wounded people, including Gamache, whose career left him with emotional scars. Residents see the isolated community, which appears on no map, as a place of healing and tranquility in a troubled world. Three Pines sits nestled in a valley, “as though held in the palm of an ancient hand. A stigmata in the Québec countryside. Not a wound, but a wonder.”

Still, this is no idyllic retreat for the Pollyannas of the world. The people of Three Pines are opinionated and witty, acerbic and judgmental. All of which makes for some funny passages and crackling dialogue. When Vincent Gilbert, a physician who has become a recluse, makes an appearance, we’re told that some of the locals view him as a saint, while others see him as an asshole. In a spirit of compromise, the residents of Three Pines have dubbed him the “asshole saint.”

This wasn’t one of my favorite books in the series. For one thing, a retired Gamache is not as compelling a character as an active-duty Gamache. And the novel includes an overly long, distracting discussion about the nature of muses. Yet Penny builds and maintains suspense as Gamache and his traveling companions try to track Peter down, making The Long Way Home a quick-paced read that closes with a horrid plot twist.

The bookstores are full of well-crafted mysteries with compelling characters, and Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache novels certainly meet those criteria. But she brings something else to these pages — a knack for conveying the complex emotions, deep-seated motivations and private turmoil — in effect, the inner lives — of her characters. Their souls are laid bare.

Review: "How the Light Gets In," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Books are published at such an astonishing rate that readers are never without something new to anticipate. Canadian author Louise Penny'a latest was high on my list of "can't wait" books this year as I prepared to embark on yet another outing - the ninth - with Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force in that French-speaking Canadian province.
 

How the Light Gets In has its charms, not least because relationships that are key parts of the series evolve and mature. In the end, though, this one is a disappointment.

Principled, shrewd and sophisticated, Gamache has run the department's homicide division for years. But his career is in jeopardy from the opening pages of How the Light Gets In, thanks to a long-running feud with his vindictive and unscrupulous boss, Chief Superintendent Sylvain Francoeur, who is hatching a mysterious plot that is clearly diabolical.

There is, of course, a murder to be solved here as well. Predictably, it brings the Montréal-based Gamache to the isolated village of Three Pines, in Québec's Eastern Townships. Several of Penny's novels have been set in Three Pines, a bucolic gem whose endearingly quirky residents seem to have withdrawn from the world at large. Except, of course, when murder rears its head, as it often does there.

The case at hand involves the death of a woman in her 70s who used the pseudonym Constance Pineault to disguise her real identity: Constance Ouellet. Ouellet, it turns out, was the last of the Oullet quintuplets, five twins whose fame spread around the globe before they secluded themselves in an obsessive quest for privacy.

Ouellet had recently visited Three Pines and is packing for a return trip when she is killed in her Montréal home. Was her murder a random act? Or did it involve her high-profile background and upbringing?

Penny admits, in an author's note, that the fictional Ouellet "quints" were inspired by the real-life Dionne quintuplets, who were born in Ontario in 1934 and became the first quintuplets known to have survived infancy. But the author takes pains to point out that the lives (and deaths) of the Oullet siblings are in no way based on those of the Dionne sisters, two of whom were still living as of May 2013.

Solving the puzzle of Ouellet's death is one of two central plot lines in How the Light Gets In. For fans of the Gamache series, the murder may be less compelling than the chief inspector's struggle with the dark forces that now control the Sûreté. The added spice of Gamache's fight for his professional survival, and possibly even his life, is what elevates the plot beyond that of a simple murder mystery.

We quickly learn that Francoeur has gutted Gamache's homicide division and filled its vacancies with lackeys who disdain him. To make matters worse, the rift that developed in a previous novel between Gamache and his beloved deputy, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, has worsened, leaving Beauvoir shattered and drug-addled and Gamache adrift in a treacherous sea. His new right hand, Isabelle Lacoste, is his only surviving ally in homicide.

Francoeur, it turns out, is after far more than Gamache's destruction. In fact, Gamache is merely an obstacle in Francoeur's path as he and his powerful but initially unidentified master put the finishing touches on a much larger conspiracy.

Penny's plotting, and the enthralling voice of her novels, are impressive. But Francoeur's nefarious goal, once it is revealed, is implausible, and on more than one level. Still, Penny's recurring characters, human and otherwise, remain endearing, right down to an irascible pet duck named Rosa and Henri, Gamache's lovable but none-too-bright German Shepherd.

Henri's head "seemed simply a sort of mount" for his big ears, Penny writes. "Fortunately Henri didn't really need his head. He kept all the important things in his heart."

Review: "The Beautiful Mystery," Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

Louise Penny’s fans - and we are legion, judging by her regular appearances on the best-seller lists - love the bucolic village of Three Pines, Québec, where most of her eight Chief Inspector Gamache mysteries have been set.

Reuniting with the idiosyncratic array of small-town locals is one of the joys of picking up a new Gamache novel, many of which involve killings that take place in the murder-prone hamlet.

But a change of scenery is welcome from time to time, and The Beautiful Mystery offers just that. In it, the prior of a secluded monastery deep in the woods of the French-speaking Canadian province of Québec is murdered, presumably by one of his fellow monks.

Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups (Saint Gilbert Among the Wolves) had virtually no contact with the outside world until the monks who live there made a recording of Gregorian chants that became an international sensation, bringing wealth and notoriety to the cloistered monastery.

That, in turn, split the monks into two camps: those who agreed with Abbot Dom Philippe that the monks should retain their traditional life of seclusion and near-total silence, and those who supported Frère Mathieu, the prior and choir master, in his push to capitalize on the recording’s success with concerts and other public appearances.

When the prior is found murdered in a walled garden that is only accessible from the abbot's office, Armand Gamache, the chief of homicide for the Québec provincial police, heads to the lakeside religious community with his sarcastic but trusted deputy, Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

Figuring out who killed the prior and why is the focus of The Beautiful Mystery, of course, and suspects abound to keep the reader guessing. But there is much more here to capture and hold our attention, including Penny’s splashes of humor. (When one monk tells Beauvoir that leading a religious life is hard, Beauvoir conjures up a slogan: “The few. The proud. The monks.”)

The ever-courtly Gamache, educated at Université Laval in Québec and Cambridge University (think Hercule Poirot without the idiosyncracies) is a joy to watch as he wends his courteous but tough-minded way through the process of collecting and weighing evidence.

And Beauvoir, who has been Gamache’s second-in-command throughout the series, brings even more to the storyline than usual this time out. That’s partly because he has become romantically involved with Gamache’s daughter, Annie, but the chief inspector and his wife appear to be unaware of the blossoming relationship.

Lurking in the background is Sylvain Francoeur, the suave but sinister chief superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec, the provincial police force. Francoeur despises his department’s top homicide cop, thanks to a confrontation chronicled in a previous novel in the series, and the feeling is mutual. So why does he show up at the crime scene, and choose to stay at the monastery during the murder investigation?

Adding still more spice to the mix, a mysterious Dominican monk dispatched by the Vatican arrives at the monastery late in the game. He goes on to play a key role in smoking out the killer and in resolving rumors that St. Gilbert houses a hidden treasure of tremendous value.

As is always the case with a Chief Inspector Gamache mystery, it’s best not to read The Beautiful Mystery on an empty stomach, because doing so may trigger a fattening attack of the munchies. There's plenty of savory food at hand whenever Gamache and Co. arrive on the scene, and this novel is no exception. Chapter 11 opens with the monks sitting down to dinner amid “bowls of small new potatoes, drizzled with butter and chives,” not to mention broccoli, sweet squash, casseroles, warm baguettes and “platters of cheeses.” Oh, and the resident chocolatier at the monastery also whips up delectable chocolate-covered blueberries. Hungry yet?