The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

I was going to start my review of The Nature of the Beast by by Louse Penny by saying that the plot of the book was somewhat out there, not quite believable. That is until I read Ms. Penny’s Author’s Note at the end of the book which states that the basics of the book are historically true. So, Ms. Penny has woven an interesting fictional story around a true set of circumstances…which somehow makes it even more unbelievable.

Nine year old Laurent Lapage is the classic ‘boy who cries wolf’. He is constantly running through the idyllic village of Three PInes with the most outrageous stories of monsters and wolves and threats to the village. So when he runs into Olivier and Gabri’s bistro shouting about a huge gun, bigger than a house or a building with monsters all over it, no one believes him. Instead, Armand Gamache drives him home. When his dead body turns up a day later, the town is shocked. The coroner ruled it an accident…Laurent fell off his bike and hit his head. However, Gamache suspects foul play for several reasons and is soon proven right.

As I’ve probably said before, reading an Inspector Gamache story is almost like coming home. Three Pines is an idyllic setting. The characters have become your friends. It is reminiscent of the Martha Grimes Richard Jury series. You enjoy going home and seeing old friends. You truly never want to leave.

A Louise Penny story always has the right combination of town camaraderie as well as town secrets and intrigue. No one is what they appear to be. They have dark interiors. As Gamache mentions, since most Three Pines residents are transplants, does anyone really and truly know anyone else?

For an immensely enjoyable combination of police procedural, small town idiosyncrasies and a well written story, the latest Louise Penny offering, The Nature of the Beast, is my recommendation.

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How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

I’m sort of all over the place with the Inspector Gamache series. Back in 2011 I read The Fatal Grace which is the second book in the series. Then last year I read The Long Way Home which is the last book in the series (so far) and now I’ve read How the Light Gets In which preceded The Long Way Home. Why? Because The Long Way Home refers back to its predecessor, so I thought it would answer all my questions. Well, it answered many of them, but there’s still some history I don’t know. So, if you’re going to attempt an Inspector Gamache book, I’d start from the beginning, Still Life. How the Light Gets In is totally enjoyable, but a little backstory would have helped.

The story starts with Audrey Villeneuve driving into Montreal from the suburbs but nervous about driving through the Ville-Marie Tunnel. In Chapter Two, Constance Pineault is visiting her friend and former therapist, Myrna, in the idyllic little town of Three Pines. (For the uninitiated, Myrna is a regular in this series–the bookstore owner in Three Pines.) Chapter Three outlines the decimation of Gamache’s Homicide Squad (one of the best in the country) by his superiors (a result of actions taken in a previous book). He fears there is something untoward occurring in the Surete but has no idea what it is or evidence to back up his hunch. Many of his superiors think he’s crazy and many of his staff have readily deserted him.

Soon, both Audrey and Constance are dead, the former an apparent suicide and the latter violently murdered. Gamache is leading both cases while still searching for proof of illegal activity within the Surete. In the murder investigations he has his only departmental ally, Inspector Isabelle Lacoste. In his search of the Surete, he has banded together an unlikely group.

That’s all I’m going to tell you about the plot, except for the fact I found it a little far-fetched. However, How the Light Gets In is still an absorbing read. I did not want to put it down. Louise Penny is a master at describing people and actions and emotion. She has created the idyllic town of Three Pines. It’s where I want to retire. It’s got a B&B, a bookstore, a bistro, a little town square and a group of people who will friend you until the end. It’s in a beautiful valley with three tall pine trees in the center of town and mountains of pines visible out the windows. I can visualize it and couldn’t fathom a more beautiful place.

The characters are wonderful and quirky. Ruth, a poet with a pet duck, Rosa. Clara the artist. Myrna the bookstore owner, Gabri and Olivier, the B&B and bistro owners, and of course, Henri, Gamache’s dog.. Everyone knows everyone and tolerates everyone’s idiosyncrasies.

The action is more cerebral than physical, which I like. It’s the thought processes and character interaction that intrigue me.

The author closest to Louise Penny that comes to mind is Martha Grimes and her Chief Inspector Richard Jury series. Her Long Piddleton is England’s equivalent of Canada’s Three Pines. And Sergeant Wiggins, Lord Melrose Plant, Aunt Agatha, Marshall Trueblood, Diane DeMorney, Vivian Rivington and Theo Wrenn Browne are the oddball cast of characters. In the Richard Jury series, he always befriends dogs and children. And while his cast of characters is somewhat more comic, the homey feeling you get while reading the books is quite similar to the Inspector Gamache series.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I highly recommend both the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny and the Chief Inspector Richard Jury series by Martha Grime.

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The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

For some reason I think I’ve read a Inspector Gamache mystery before but have no record of it. The Long Way Home got excellent reviews and I thought I’d give it a try. It was well worth the read.

One of the best ways to describe the Gamache mysteries is it is the Canadian version of Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury mysteries with Gamache being Jury and his entourage emulating Jury’s. Instead of the ever present dog in the Jury mysteries, there is a duck in Gamache’s. It is the same type of read, though.

Gamache has retired to the small Canadian town of Three Pines to recoup after a serious case. After walking with his wife and his dog each morning, he sits on a park bench overlooking the valley and reads from a small book…but he never progresses in the book.

Each morning, also, his artist neighbor Clara sits beside him and all the townspeople wonder why because they don’t converse. One day she gets up the nerve to talk to him. It seems slightly over a year ago she and her husband, Peter, also an artist, took a break from each other. They agreed that one year from the date of the breakup they would meet and reevaluate. But Peter hasn’t shown up, which is very unlike him.

This statement and request for assistance ultimately involves Gamache, his wife Reine-Marie, his son-in-law Jean-Guy also a police officer, Clara, and neighbors Ruth and Myrna. It’s interesting because the characters talk about art and muses. They visit the small scenic villages that you picture in Canada and England. The plot takes some unusual and unpredictable twists. With 50 pages left, there’s no violence.

Once I got started, I read the book for the characters, not the plot. Poet Ruth is a blast–sort of like Melrose Plant’s aunt Lady Agatha in the Grimes’ series.

Martha Grimes fans and Louise Penny fans should switch books because if you like one, you’ll surely like the other. A totally enjoyable read.

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Vertigo 42 by Martha Grimes

There’s comfort food such as chicken soup when you’re feeling ill or hot apple pie with ice cream when you’re sad or hot chocolate on a cold night. What about the concept of a comfort book? Sort of like a best friend who you may see once every two or three years, but every time you meet it feels like yesterday. So, what about a comfort book?  It’s been four years since Martha Grimes wrote her last Richard Jury mystery, The Black Cat, but now we have a new one, Vertigo 42 and it’s like old friends coming back to visit. The old crew is back.

Like all Jury mysteries, it contains dogs, children, and his friends Carole-anne Palutski, Melrose Plant, Marshall Trueblood, Vivian Rivington and Diane Demorney, as well as Plant’s aunt Agatha. They seem to have been relegated to the backseat though, having much smaller roles than I remember in previous books. However, Jury’s Sergeant Wiggins seems a little smarter than he did four years ago.

Twenty two years ago a young girl was attending a party, fell into an empty in-ground swimming pool and died. Seventeen years ago, the hostess of the above party fell down a flight of stairs and died. Presently, a young woman fell out of a tower and died. Are all of these incidents related? Even though Superintendent Jury is on vacation, he gets involved in the investigation.

As are all Richard Jury books, Vertigo 42 is a satisfying read. The title is taken from a bar atop a building in London, a slight deviation from the pub-originated titles of the previous books, but still somewhat related.

I will say that the story was a little obtuse, hard to follow the connection at times. Also, in previous books Jury interacted with young children and dogs, whereas this book merely talks about them. I miss that. There was a certain satisfaction that came from these interactions. It put a smile on my face.

One thing I found fascinating (which I don’t remember thinking about before) was that a female author has created a male character that notices things a woman would notice. Grimes’ description of clothing and rooms, wallpaper, furniture is certainly not how this man would describe them. I didn’t mind this…I just noticed it.

Don’t get me wrong. I really liked Vertigo 42 and am still a Richard Jury fan, but something just seemed absent from this outing.

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