A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

First Line: Armand Gamache sat in the little room and closed the dossier with care, squeezing it shut, trapping the words inside.

At first thought to be an oddity, an old hand-drawn map found in a wall of the bistro in Three Pines winds up in the hands of Armand Gamache as he begins his new job as head of the Sûreté Academy. There the map will lead Gamache to secrets. To four young cadets. And to a dead professor.

The time has come for a great reckoning.

Not having been a fan of Penny's last book, The Nature of the Beast, (and feeling like an abject traitor) I was thrilled to read A Great Reckoning and see that she's back on track with her siren-like magic.

Although the books in this series can be read as standalones, each book is actually a chapter in one long story arc. This means that the books will have a much greater impact on readers if they are read in order, beginning with Still Life. 

Corruption in Quebec's police force has been a long-running subplot, and in A Great Reckoning Gamache heads to the Academy to finish the task of "cleaning house." You can get rid of dishonest cops from positions of power in government and from the streets and patrol cars, but if you don't go to the source-- the Academy-- and clear out the bad teachers and cadets, you're never going to solve the problem in its entirety. This is the task Gamache has set himself, and he is well aware that it means he will have to do things that he does not wish to do. 

The investigation into the professor's murder, the significance of the old map, the true identity of a cadet named Amelia Choquet... all these things and more combine to make a page-turning narrative that tugs at the mind and the heart. And, I'm happy to say, the citizens of tiny, idyllic Three Pines are back to being their vibrant selves-- especially Ruth.

I know that Louise Penny has a specific ending in mind for this series, but I sincerely hope we can all look forward to a few more trips to my favorite village in Quebec.
     

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

eISBN: 9781250022127

Minotaur Books © 2016

eBook, 400 pages

Police Procedural, #12 Armand Gamache mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon  

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Title: Bury Your Dead
Author: Louise Penny
ISBN: 9780312377045
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2010
Hardcover, 384 pages
Genre: Police Procedural, #6 Armand Gamache mystery
Rating: A+
Source: Amazon Vine

First Line: Up the stairs they raced, taking them two at a time, trying to be as quiet as possible.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has come to the beautiful old city of Quebec during Winter Carnival to recuperate from an investigation gone horrifically wrong. He stays with a dear friend, he takes his dog for walks along the streets, he frequents favorite restaurants, and he does a bit of research at the English-operated Literary and Historical Society. But death intrudes even in that sanctuary, and everyday a letter arrives from the village of Three Pines which tells Gamache, "He didn't do it, you know."

I was absolutely thrilled with Penny's first novel, Still Life, and-- incredibly-- each book in this series has grown stronger and stronger. Readers new to Penny will rejoice that they don't need to start with book one. Although characters from previous books make appearances in Bury Your Dead, it isn't necessary to read the other books in order to enjoy this one. Readers who are well aware of Penny's talent will simply rejoice that there's a new book to read. (We know the treat we have in store.)

At the beginning of this book, we are told that Gamache and other members of his team have been seriously injured in a previous investigation, but Penny wisely doles out the information about this in a slow but steady stream. A strength in this book is that-- although I was dying to know everything about this investigation-- I didn't become angered by the author's slipping away into other plot threads. The other plot threads themselves are very strong.

There is information about the French and English communities in Quebec, both past and current. The treasure hunt revolving around Samuel de Champlain is fascinating. Gamache sending his second-in-command, Jean Guy Beauvoir, to Three Pines to reopen an investigation introduces new readers to that marvelous village of characters that is so beloved by those of us who already know it.

This series is consistently excellent, and is one that I always recommend to others. Many mysteries seem to focus so strongly on death and past mistakes that they never rise above the two. There are two sentences in Penny's acknowledgments that tell readers a great deal about the series as a whole: "Like the rest of the Chief Inspector Gamache books, Bury Your Dead is not about death, but about life. And the need to both respect the past and let it go." This is why these books rise above: they have a humanity that so many of the others lack.

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The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny

Title: The Cruellest Month
Author: Louise Penny
ISBN: 9780755328956, Headline, 2007
Genre: Police Procedural, #3 Inspector Armand Gamache mystery
Rating: B+

First Line: Kneeling in the fragrant moist grass of the village green, Clara Morrow carefully hid the Easter egg and thought about raising the dead, which she planned to do right after supper.

It is Easter time in the small Quebec village of Three Pines, and the earth is beginning to come out of winter's long shadow. As a lark, several villagers enlist the aid of a visitor to hold a seance. The results are less than satisfactory, so they plan a second one-- to be held in the creepy old Hadley house. The second seance has deadly consequences. Madeleine Favreau is frightened to death, and many people feel that the Hadley house has claimed yet another victim. Forensics prove otherwise, and it's not long before Inspector Armand Gamache and his team are in Three Pines to solve the murder. Unfortunately Gamache has more on his plate than finding a killer. Five years before he put a bad cop behind bars, and there are members of the Surete du Quebec who want to make sure he pays for this.

It is always a pleasure to visit this small village in Quebec. It has some of the best characters in crime fiction living there. The old Hadley house ranks high on my list of creepy, spooky places that I wouldn't spend the night in-- a French Canadian version of Shirley Jackson's Hill House:

As he approached he was surprised to see peeling paint and jagged, broken windows. The 'For Sale' sign had fallen over and tiles were missing from the roof and even some bricks from the chimney. It was almost as though the house was casting parts of itself away.

Something in him felt the need to seal away whatever was in that room. He'd never admit it, of course, but Jean Guy Beauvoir had felt something growing. The longer he stayed the more it grew. Foreboding. No, not foreboding. Something else.

Even Gamache has a problem with the Hadley house:

What does that house want? Gamache wondered. Anything that went in alive came out either dead or different.

Mix a creepy old house with a group of marvelous characters, and you have the ingredients for an excellent read. The only part of this book that palled a bit for me was the secondary story line about the police officers in the Surete who were out to get Gamache. I was hopeful that Gamache would just round them all up and brick them in the basement of the Hadley house, but he's just too nice to do something like that!

If you like reading about a wonderful cast of characters, life in a Shangri-La-like village, and mysteries where the killers always have interesting motivations, Louise Penny's series is the one for you. I would suggest, however, that you do read the series in order because of the characters and their inter-relatedness.

I recently received the fourth book in the series, A Rule Against Murder, from a fellow Paperback Swap member. It won't be long before I read it because today I received an ARC of the fifth book, The Brutal Telling, in the mail. It's always good to know I have reading gems awaiting me!