Thank you again to my book club friends who introduced me to Louise Penny's superb Inspector Gamache series. And they were dead on when they recommended that this series be read in order. You could, I suppose, read each mystery on its own and enjoy it, but you would miss so much of the subtlety and psychological aspects of the series which you couldn't appreciate without knowing the backstory. I've just finished the third book in this series, The Cruelest Month (#507) and the books just keep getting better and better. But I do disagree with my friends on one aspect of these mysteries; they love the series because they feel the characters of the fictional village of Three Pines, Quebec, are people you'd love to have dinner with. Some of them, yes, but I think this series with its fey touches is at heart, very dark. I don't think I could ever be completely comfortable at a dinner table with these villagers!
After all, no good came to the woman who was murdered in The Cruelest Month after she has dinner with her neighbors. At first blush, Madelaine Favreau appears to have been frightened to death at a séance, but the Surete supervisor in Montreal asks Inspector Gamache to travel to Three Pines on Easter to nose around and determine whether or not the death was helped along by human agency. Gamache is reluctant to leave while his son's family are visiting from Paris, but duty calls. And so a second plot is put into motion to bring about Gamache's downfall.
It's a gripping, and also disillusioning, read for those of like mind with Gamache. But hope is still the heart of this book. I can't wait to find out what happens next...
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