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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was my favorite of the series so far. I have such a weird relationship with these books. I listen to them on audio and the narrator definitely speaks at a quick clip. It works well for the smart banter and keeps the pace of the mystery moving so well.
However, I also have the problem of occasionally zoning out while I listen and with how fast the narrator speaks, I can sometimes miss a lot. Despite that, though, I often find myself pausing and replying to copy down quotes. I’ll sometimes lose bits of the plot, but the moments of depth always bring me back.
Louise Penny does an amazing job of bringing her characters to life and then inspecting them. In every book, you’ll get a murder mystery with a fairly tight cast, but you’re also opened up to a whole world of family and social dynamics that exist in the quiet day to day. Not only do you find out who really did it and why, but you find out how other characters might be pushed to do something similar or how there are little crimes hidden in the day to day.
For this book, we have a set up of a haunted house seance gone wrong. A beloved townie is murdered during the event and there’s seemingly no motive for her murder as the town comes to term with complicated relationships with their pasts and their impressions of people in the present. While the author does a great job of taking a close look at people and their motivations for all things in her books, I think in this one she marries the theme to the plot really well. Throughout the book we see people who look like they should be close (2 poets in the same town!) but are not at all or people who believe and appear to feel one thing for another (they’re in love!) actually be something very different (they’ve got a problematic attachment!) Not only do we have these weird mirror or shadowy dichotomies being explored in relationships, but the idea of a haunted past or secret past self you want to keep dead or attempt to face is on every page.
I hope to read this again and really let all the little Easter eggs seep in (yes, there are actual Easter eggs in this one too). I’m so glad there are so many more of these to read. I could mentally vacation to Three Pines forever!
Quotes
But tonight the wild applause didn’t move her. Didn’t wash over her and protect her from the suspicions she’d been found out for the pathetic little thing she knew herself to be. From trying to fit into a world where everyone knew the code except her.
He was forever trying to get her to use tricks to get people to like her. But she knew that tricks were useless. People wouldn’t like her. They never did.
It was a strangely powerful feeling. And she wondered if this is how judges felt when Canada still had the death penalty.
Losers were the most dangerous people because eventually they got to the stage where they had nothing left to lose.
It was like dragging a memory from the bottom of the sea, yanking it up with great effort.
You’re predictable, Chief Inspector. You need to save people just as you’ve been saved. […] No one drowns on your watch; quite a burden.
Our secrets make us sick because they separate us from other people.
The more I read of Louise Penny, the more I like her. This book finished a mini arc started with Still Life.
Another amazing edition to the Inspector Gamache series. Louise Penny manages to make her return to Three Pines and its inhabitants fresh and insightful. Love her books and can't wait to continue on with Gamache's story.
Lovely Madeleine is scared to death during a seancé. However, foul play has been at work and helped death along, so chief inspector Gamache and his team are sent to investigate. This book is however mostly about Gamache's trouble at headquarter with plenty of political intrigue and back-stabbing. I was not at all interested in this side of the story, so this book was a drag. I think I'll leave Gamache for a while now. I will be back though, Louise Penny is a fantastic author with excellent insight into human nature.
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
mysterious
I don't care that Chief Inspector Gamache is in his 50s and fictional. I love him. That is all.
Maybe 3.5 stars - I didn't so much care about the plot of this book as much as I cared about the side plot that has been building with Inspector Gamache since Book 1 - I was very intrigued by all of that but a little bored by the murder mystery itself. But the side plot and some really deep meaningful moments really had my attention
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes