Welcome to winter in Three Pines, a picturesque village in Quebec, where the villagers are preparing for a traditional country Christmas, and someone is preparing for murder.
My newly birthed obsession with the creation of author Louise Penny continues with the second book in her series of novels about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, A Fatal Grace. Immediately upon finishing her debut novel, Still Life, I traveled back to the village of Three Pines. I had become so enamored of the villagers–Peter and Clara, Olivier and Gabri, Myrna, even the cruel and cantankerous poet Ruth Zardo–that I had to make a return trip. And then of course there is Armand Gamache, whose adoration for his wife Reine-Marie is matched only by the kind intelligence with which he greets the process of solving that most heinous crime: murder.
And of course it wouldn’t be a murder mystery without the murder, although early on in the novel we get time to meet the cast, including the victim, well before Chief Inspector Armand Gamache makes his inevitable appearance. It is days before Christmas and Clara and Myrna take a trip to the city to buy Christmas gifts and to witness the signing event for Ruth Zardo’s latest volume of poetry. While there Clara meets a homeless woman whose words cut to the core of her belief and her being. Also in this most joyous season we meet CC de Poitiers, a most un-joyous woman whose impending murder will be seen as a gift from the Fates to all who have spent any significant time with her. CC de Poitiers is self-involved to the point of being delusional and had to be a delight to write. She is the ultimate villain of the piece, a character you love to hate, and her bold and elaborate murder will test the faculties and the resolve of Armand Gamache and his partner, Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir, before the end.
I mentioned in the last review how impressed I was with the skill manifested in Louise Penny’s debut work. A Fatal Grace is, among other things, proof that lightning can strike twice. Though to be accurate Penny’s work is nothing like the random act of a lightning strike while for me being every bit as electric. She is a masterful storyteller whose mysteries stand out in a crowded field because of the wonderful characters she creates. It says something when you read a murder mystery and are in no hurry to get to the murder because you are so happy to be back spending time with friends you met in the previous novel. As in her first book, Louise Penny crafts her story with sentences and paragraphs that stand out and make you take notice. Given my journey towards better health and the effect it has had on the way that I look and feel, I had to laugh when I read this early on:
“Beauvoir shoved his black ski hat further down his head and tugged the ear flaps into place. It was the closest thing he could find to an attractive hat that was also almost warm. Jean Guy Beauvoir was constantly at war with himself, at odds over his need to wear clothes that showed off his slender, athletic build, and his need not to freeze his tight ass off.”
Once I was done laughing I immediately pulled up my blog and typed the quote out and then sent a copy of it to Mary so that we could share in the laugh. After years of having little interest in clothes because of my weight I am now at a point where Penny’s description of Jean Guy Beauvoir is a far-too-accurate reflection of the way I’ve been feeling lately. Ha! I neglected to mention in my review of Still Life that in addition to strong characters and the ability to surprise, Louise Penny does two other things very well with her Three Pines/Inspector Gamache mysteries: she makes you smile and she makes your mouth water! An intelligent and playful sense of humor is woven into each story with just the right frequency to relieve tension without breaking the thread. And the food! My oh my but temptation doth rear its ugly head when reading a Louise Penny novel. It is fortunate I have months and months of habitual healthy eating as a foundation because her descriptions of the meals in Three Pines are enough to make one want to go on a delicacy-filled eating binge.
Plot threads surprised me in Still Life and that surprise not only continued but grew in A Fatal Grace. Characters and story lines that I presumed finished were back in this novel creating a B story line that tied both books together and promised more to come. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has some unresolved in his past and we learn much more about that in A Fatal Grace. I have to admit that I stayed awake long, long past my bedtime last night to complete the last half of this book in one sitting and the draw from Gamache’s story line was as strong as was that of the resolution to the murder itself.
I am not sure how long I’ll go before I take a break and step away from Gamache and the village of Three Pines, but for now I’m content to spend more time there. I picked up books three and four from the library last night and, yes, I read some of book three–The Cruelest Month–this morning. With back-to-back reviews I hope I’ve convinced you to at least add Louise Penny to your list of authors to check out. Tis (almost) the season for a good mystery, and you won’t go wrong here.
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Louise Penny is the author of seven novels in the Chief Inspector Gamache series with the eighth due for release in August 2012. From her website: “I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in Toronto in 1958 and became a journalist and radio host with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, specializing in hard news and current affairs. My first job was in Toronto and then moved to Thunder Bay at the far tip of Lake Superior, in Ontario. It was a great place to learn the art and craft of radio and interviewing, and listening. That was the key. A good interviewer rarely speaks, she listens. Closely and carefully. I think the same is true of writers.” She married her husband Michael “later in life” and states that “Fifteen years later we live in an old United Empire Loyalist brick home in the country, surrounded by maple woods and mountains and smelly dogs.” It sounds like a slice of heaven.
Wow–that was fast! I haven’t even had a chance to get to the library to get the first one yet. 😛 But now I’m even more eager to. I especially love this: “It says something when you read a murder mystery and are in no hurry to get to the murder because you are so happy to be back spending time with friends you met in the previous novel.” Definitely a sign of a good series! Hope you find the next ones every bit as enjoyable!
Ha! 🙂 Yes, pretty much gobbled this one up in a day. I like 300 page books, if you get a little time to yourself it doesn’t take long to hit the half-way point, and once there the momentum keeps you going!
It takes something in the neighborhood of 50 pages before Armand Gamache enters the book and even more before a murder is committed. I loved that. It was great to get to spend some non-murder-mystery time with a few of the Three Pines villagers and even better when the first appearance of Gamache is him spending time with his wife, albeit in a very unconventional way. Or maybe it is conventional if you are the head of a homicide division. 😉
I hope so too, and I hope you find them to be just what you need when you pick them up.
Zip it Anderson! I don’t need another lead in thank you anyway!!!! I am truly trying to get my tbr pile down to under 100!!!I still buy a used book but not 3 or 4 books so that I read more than I buy! This would certainly not help me! lol I will keep them in mind though because I do see Louise Penny in the used book store! ugh!
Hey, this would be perfect to add to your RIP list, because I know you don’t have anything else you need/want to read in Sept/Oct. 🙂
oh really??!! lol…I have lots I can read for RIP!!!!
I don’t know, I was pretty sure you were running out of books. 😉
yeahrightsure!
If I had to take my UNread books with me when I died there’d be no room in the grave for my casket! (is that RIP worthy? woohoo)
LOL! Yes. That was RIP worthy. 🙂
What?!?! You mean we can’t take our books with us?!?! That’s it, I’m not dying!
love the quote you pulled and your remarks following. 🙂 sounds like Ms. Penny has my kind of sense of humor.
I bought this and the first book for a fellow blogger for one of those holiday book gifting things. She swore by Louise Penny and I thought, sure, I should give them a go. Now I know I will have to give them a go after yesterday and today’s review. I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump and these look like a good antidote.
I was in what I guess was a reading slump, as far as fiction went, as I was focusing more on reading about running, but Butcher’s Fool Moon and now these books have me back in the fiction groove and I’m really enjoying it. Would be great to know what you think of the first book.
L, this IS the first book in the series.
Think you got confused there, Richard, this isn’t the Still Life post. This is actually the second book. 🙂
Oops. I’m sorry, I meant Still Life was the first book. My bad for not paying attention.
I imagine with how few book posts I’ve done recently it just shocked you that I finished another book so quickly AND got the review up! 🙂
Sounds good! I have planned to check the author out but haven’t yet. I am glad you are continuing to enjoy her!
Me too! This has been such a fun preview of the upcoming RIP Challenge!
So…it seems you’re quite taken with this new author/series. 🙂
Both reviews sound like wonderful reads. I will have to check them out. I really love the cover on the book above as well. I love series that have a great cast of characters. Those stories seem so much more authentic as we all have our own cast of characters that make our lives unique.
Thanks for the reviews!!!
Yes I am. As you well know Mary and I have been HUGE fans of a variety of British (and other) mysteries for a long time and these feel like the novel equivalent of the very best of those only even better because as we all know books allow us to get deeper into the minds and motivations of characters.
“Authentic” is a good description and I think a point I’ll be touching on in my review of the third one, because yes I am reading it now, is that each and every one of these characters reveals moments that make me screw up my face in consternation. They have their flaws, things that you wish they hadn’t done or thought, etc. But each of those things are so very HUMAN and give them so much more dimension while retaining the charm of characters in quaint, whimsical cozy mysteries. Penny does that so well. She’s done it in a way that has won me over.
That’s what I love about books in comparsion to movies/tv shows. An author can take you into the souls of the characters. You can get into back story and character motivations on such a deeper level in a book.
British feel??? I thought this a series from our northern neighbors. Don’t bring up those folk from across the pond who want to tax our tea!!!
It is in Canada, but there are English and French characters and a great deal of talk about the “English” as compared to the “French” so it does have that feel. Interestingly they also have moments where it feels very “American” and it cracks me up how much that throws me, as if Canada is such a wildly different country in regards to pop culture and such.
I’m with you on the books. TV/Film, as much as I’ve been moved by it over the years, doesn’t hold a candle to the experience you get from venturing into a book.
I really enjoy mystery novels, though I’ve never tried Louise Penny before. People do seem to love her, though, and the fact that you became so attached so quickly makes me want to pick her books up! So many mystery novels, so little times 🙂
Boy isn’t that the truth?!?! I’m already lamenting the books I won’t get to for RIP this year and it hasn’t even started yet. And I’m getting a jump on it! LOL!
Definitely recommend putting Louise Penny on your list.
Okay! You’ve talked me into it! I’ll read Louise Penny!
Awesome! Glad to hear it Emily. I’m enjoying book three very much!