ISBN: 9780312573508
How I Read It: Paperback purchased by me.
How I Read It: Paperback purchased by me.
My Rating: 4 Crowns
Synopsis: Welcome to
Three Pines, where the cruelest month is about to deliver on its threat. It’s spring in the tiny, forgotten village;
buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly
thawed earth. However, not everything is
meant to return to life…
When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the
old Hadley house, one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death, or was it murder?
Brilliant, compassionate Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to
investigate, and the case will force him to face his own ghosts as well as
those of a seemingly idyllic town where relationships are far more dangerous
than they seem.
*Synopsis taken from the back of the book
My Review: Any time
I read one of Louise Penny’s novels set in Three Pines, I fall in love with the
village all over again. And then I feel
terrible that all of these awful things keep happening there! Despite these murders, it’s the kind of
village I’d like to spend some time in, although I’m not quite sure I’d fit in.
This time around, a woman called Madeline, who is adored by pretty
much everyone, dies of fright at a séance.
Initially, everyone believes it was just a tragic accident, but the
arrival of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache gets the villagers to realize that
maybe her death was more of an intentional thing after all.
Gamache himself is dealing with some personal/professional drama
because of a case from a few years back, which is starting to resurface. Those things were particularly heartbreaking for
me because I absolutely adore Gamache and I really hate seeing anyone
deliberately hurt him.
For me, reading these novels is all about the characters and their interpersonal
relationships with each other. Sure,
there’s a mystery afoot that needs to be solved, but I’m equally interested in
the interactions between Gamache and his number two man, Jean Guy; the way the relationship
between Peter and Clara changes as she becomes more successful; and pretty much
any time anyone interacts with Ruth, it’s a hoot. These characters are all like living,
breathing people, and Louise Penny really makes it seem like if you’re lucky
enough to find Three Pines, these people are waiting for you. I would love to stay at Gabri’s B&B!
The scene of the murder is the scary old Hadley House, which is a
pretty terrifying place for several of the characters because of their history
in the house. Readers who have been
following the series from book one will probably also have some lingering
feelings about it – it’s a little like reading about the Amityville house, or
some other famous scary place like that.
It made for a really good murder setting, and the creep factor is
increased as the mystery becomes more intricate.
I always feel like the plot is really believable in these novels too,
it’s never that something incredibly outrageous happens that requires
suspending a lot of disbelief. The
beauty is that the story itself is just so lovely that I don’t think I’d care
even if they did all get to that level.
In my mind, that makes for almost a perfect mystery! Plus this was a great time of year to read
it, because it’s spring, and April isn’t far off, so it was very seasonally
appropriate during my reading.
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2 comments:
I was very disappointed in the last Penny book I read. Maybe I should go back to this one.
Although these can generally be read as stand-alone mysteries, I feel like I get more out of them when I read them in the order they were released. Penny builds on the shared history of the characters, so if you pick one up later on down the line without seeing the others first, it makes it a bit harder to enjoy. I would go so far as to say she's probably my favorite contemporary mystery writer!
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