Extras

Sunday, May 24, 2020

A Better Man by Louise Penny

I listened to the audio book of A Better Man by Louise Penny this week. I don't think there is a Gamache story I have not liked. I also thought the narrator of A Better Man, was really good.

This is Inspector Gamache book #15.

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About: " It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Floodwaters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil, a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.
As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.
Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel..., he resumes the search.
As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.
In the next novel in this "constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves" (The New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question.
What would you do if your child's killer walked free?"

 Louise Penny never disappoints. Her writing is melodious. Her descriptions of the scenery, weather and emotions are wonderful. We are very happy to see Gamache back in Three Pines and back at work. There are many very funny interactions between the friends in Three Pines, many laugh out loud moments in between the darkness of the story and the cold of the winter. The story is very complex and multilayered. We get to follow Gamache and Jean Guy as they together tweeze apart who the murderer is. There are plenty of suspects and misdirection leading us to the murder being solved.


I just love visiting Three Pines and the interactions between the characters. There are changes taking place which makes for a bitterweet ending.

Louise Penny hosted a Q&A this week on Goodreads. Here was one thing that she wrote about that I did not know about the series. 

"It’s funny how we pick up ideas, isn’t it? I sat beside an elderly stranger at a social, in a church basement, and she told me the story of the three pines. She had them planted in front of her house. Had been there for more than a hundred years. And that they were a signal to those loyal to the British crown, flooding across the boarded during the War of Independence, that they were safe in Canada. I heard that story years before starting to write, and always loved the symbolism of it. The kindness of the act, the awareness of how weary and confused and frightened those immigrants must’ve been. And then, the unimaginable power of knowing they were safe. Unbeknownst to me, in the church basement over dinner with a stranger, the seeds not just of the village, but the themes of Three Pines were planted." All The Devils Are Here is due to be out December 1, 2020.

1 comment:

  1. So glad you enjoyed A Better Man, Gayle. I don't think I've ever heard Louise tell that story about the three pines. Cannot wait until the new books comes out - set in Paris. Wheee!!!

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