Review : The Cruelest Month

Author: Louise Penny
Format: audio book 11.7 hours, 416 pages
Characters: Inspector Armand Gamache,
Subject: murder in a small town
Setting: fictional village of Three Pines, Quebec
Series: Chief Inspector Gamage
Genre: mystery, police detective
Source: public library audio b
Challenge: Support Your Local Library, Thrillers and Suspense

This not the final book in Louise Penny's wonderful Chief Inspector Gamage series, but it is the final one for me to read to be caught up.  While they are understandable on their own, given the choice, I would have preferred to read them in order.  In fact, that is one of my goals for later this year or next year, to read them back to back in order...hopefully before her next book BURY YOUR DEAD comes out later this year.

Of course, reading this one, now the fifth I done, I still put the book down and long to go and live in Three Pines.  But I ask myself why?  Why on earth would I want to live in a town where there are so many murders?  Where old women roam the street talking to ducks?  Where secrets seem to be hidden in every crack of every ancient building? 

Well.....because.....

Because all of these people seem to care. They care about the earth, the animals, themselves, their lovers, their neighbors, and most of all they care about their village--its history, its current state and its future. Who wouldn't want to be part of this? And who wouldn't want to stop by Olivier and Gabri's bistro every evening for a glass of wine, a poetry reading, a book discussion, or simply to watch the sunset, or the rain fall?

These are genuinely gorgeous books. They soak us in the warmth of this village. We know these people. They're our friends now, and we want them not to have to endure any more sorrow. But we know that life deals out sorrow with happiness and that's why we keep returning. They're real to us. And we want to be part of it. Penny's ability to write clear prose exploring human emotions and darkly buried secrets and terrors is special. She is in a league with Agatha Christie, P.D. James, and Donna Leon.

If you haven't read her, be sure to get these so you can be caught up when the 6th on comes out in the fall.The first in the series is STILL LIFE and it's every bit as good as this one.

"You may go now...I have wine and scotch and all the books I could want to read."-- I have to go back and double check which character said this, but I loved this quote. Whoever it was was sitting in the bistro by the fire...

Review: A Fatal Grace

Author: Louise Penny
Format: audio -8 discs (10 hrs), 368 pages equivalent
Characters: Armand Gamache, Jean Guy Beauvoir
Subject: murder in a small town
Setting: Three Pines, outside Montreal
Series: The Three Pines Mysteries
Genre: mystery, detectives
Source: public library audio book



Once again, Louise Penny takes us to that idyllic village in the Pines outside Montreal, where we all want to go on our vacation to experience the beauty, the quiet, the inhabitants whom we are beginning to regard now as friends.  In this 2nd of the Three Pines Mystery series, we even begin to like that eccentric old lady Ruth, the poet, the head of the volunteer fire department.

Inspector Gamache and his team must find out who killed a woman who was electrocuted on a frozen pond while watching the town's annual Boxing Day curling match.

The fact that absolutely no one in the town liked the victim, or even seemed to know much about her, makes the job even harder.  Penny is beginning to hit her stride in this one, as she offers us several different possibilities for the perpetrator, introduces some new characters, and expands on the character of Armand Gamache that we met in her first book "Still Life."

When we finally figure it out (or did we?) there's still several chapters left, and we find perhaps we didn't get it right after all.

I listened to this in audio and it's such a treat to hear the bi-lingual give and take, the elegance of the Quebecois as they go about day to day life.  To read (or listen) to these books is to fall in love with characters, a town, a region. I can't wait to read more.


Challenge: Supoort Your Local Library, Audio books, Thrillers Suspence and Mystery

Earplugs- the Weekly audios

I'm so so into audio books.  I cannot imagine sitting down to relax without having a plug in my ear to listen as I do needlework, 'watch' the RedSox blow another one, or just relax and watch the leaves fall.  It's especially de-stressing to listen as I chop veggies for dinner, or fold laundry.  So I felt like I'd found a real kindred spirit when I read fellow blogger Anastasia's terrific post on Bird Brain(ed) Bookblog titled On Audiobooks and why they are awesome.--don't you just love that name?-both the blog and the post? Anastasia makes a cogent and passionate defense of the audio book format. Be sure to check it out.

This weeks' listening involved mysteries, and both were part of ongoing series featuring in the first the urbane, suave Chief of La Surete in Quebec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, and in the other one of my favorite amateur sleuths: 92 year old Victoria Trumbull of Martha's Vineyard.

The Paperwhite Narcissus

Cynthia Riggs
Narrated by Davina Porter
A Martha's Vineyard Series mystery

This one features Victoria Trumbull, 92 yr old journalist, and unofficial deputy chief of police. She has the chief of police (60 some years her junior) driving her around after they took her driver's license away, she still mounts steps like a 10 year old, climbs ladder, catches fish, and has that imperious school marm voice that can bring 60 year old men to their knees.

There's also Colley Jamison, editor of the island's only newspaper. He is supporting 4 ex-wives and desperately trying to get his hands on some money. Someone keeps sending him obituaries purporting to be Colley's. To keep expenses down at the paper, he fires Victoria and several others, replacing them with young female summer interns who work for the glory of it. He acts surprised when Victoria threatens to sue him for age discrimination, and then grudgingly hires her to find out who is sending the obituaries.  Oh yeah....the obits keep showing up right about the time of murders....which seem to be a growth industry on the island.

Cynthia Riggs gives us a great picture of the Vineyard, the separate areas of the island, and the culture of the people who live there year round. This cozy is well plotted, has great characters, and is easy on the ears, and mind.  It's a great fun whodunnit.  Be sure to check it out.  Any of this series is worth reading- with your eyes or your ears.

My only complaint with this audio is having a British voice do the narrating. It seems very out of place. Davina Porter is one of my favorite narrators for audio books, but the voice just isn't right for Martha's Vineyard.
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A Rule against Murder

Louise Penny
narrated by Ralph Cosham
An Inspector Gamache mystery.

This one is just plain fabulous. I have a full review you can read here.

This week I have another mystery on deck: this one a female private eye; and then I just got a wonderful Alexander McCall Smith story that I can't wait to get to.

Stay plugged in.

Review: A Rule Against Murder

While this novel by Canadian Louise Penny is an Inspector Armand Gamache mystery, it is not set in Three Pines as were the others.  It is however, every bit as tightly plotted, exquisitely written, and spell-binding as her others.

Gamache takes his beautiful wife Reine Marie to the idyllic rustic Manoir Bellechasse to celebrate their wedding anniversary (it is where they spent the first night of their honeymoon).  While he's there another family has taken over the rest of the lodge, and it soon becomes apparent that these people do not like each other very much.  They are there to commemorate their deceased father by unveiling and dedicating a statue to him.

As one would expect, there is a murder on site, and Gamache (along with his second in command, Jean-Guy Beaumont) goes about the ugly task of interviewing this most unhappy group of visitors and staff to solve the mystery.  They are an intriguing group: the chef who looks familiar to Jean Guy, and Reine Marie, the aloof maitre d', the surly summer hire, the shy and nervous gardener, the sons of the deceased (one a total snob, the other --well---), the widow of the deceased (who has re-married) and her husband, the daughter of the deceased and her child (we must question whether a child named "Bean" is male or female--I won't tell) and the proprietess who owns and runs the shop. 

Add in the ex-son-in-law (sitting in a Vancouver jail for investment fraud) and Gamache's struggles with his memories of his deceased father and this book becomes one with layer upon layer of complexity.  It is frankly magnificent.

Although this is not set in Three Pines, Penny manages to involve the villagers (Peter is the son of the deceased pater who is being memorialized) and she evokes the quiet, beautiful wilderness that is the hallmark of the other books in the series.

I think Louise Penny is going to be this generation's Agatha Christie.  She is that good.  I love her characters, I love her settings, and she is masterful at developing plot lines.  If you haven't read any of her books, take it from TUTU...you must.  It will be on my list of Best Reads of the Year for sure.