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A review by caitlinxmartin
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
4.0
This is the first book by this author that I've had the pleasure to read, but I suspect that I'll go back & read the others now.
Penny is writing murder mysteries in the British whodunit style, but filtered through a Quebecois sensibility. There is much right in the village of Three Pines, but some things are wrong, as well, & the discovery of a body in Olivier's bistro sheds a light on those things.
This could easily have been a facile imitation of Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers, but Penny's writing elevates it to its place in the genre. Her characters are complex & beautifully drawn. Her writing style is clear & precise, but also poetic & lyrical. She drops plenty of red herrings into the mix, but also manages to fashion an ending that is not neat, not tidy, not necessarily even complete. The story & the story inside the story sit uneasily on the mind & that is as it should be. The imagery is gorgeous, the violence is never gratuitous, & there are real dilemmas for all of her characters buried within the plot that are central to them, but not to the mystery.
Penny plots a carefully crafted mystery within the rules of the genere she is writing in, but goes beyond that to create a novel of real beauty. The mystery of it all is in the whodunit, but also in the lives of her characters. I really loved this book.
Penny is writing murder mysteries in the British whodunit style, but filtered through a Quebecois sensibility. There is much right in the village of Three Pines, but some things are wrong, as well, & the discovery of a body in Olivier's bistro sheds a light on those things.
This could easily have been a facile imitation of Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers, but Penny's writing elevates it to its place in the genre. Her characters are complex & beautifully drawn. Her writing style is clear & precise, but also poetic & lyrical. She drops plenty of red herrings into the mix, but also manages to fashion an ending that is not neat, not tidy, not necessarily even complete. The story & the story inside the story sit uneasily on the mind & that is as it should be. The imagery is gorgeous, the violence is never gratuitous, & there are real dilemmas for all of her characters buried within the plot that are central to them, but not to the mystery.
Penny plots a carefully crafted mystery within the rules of the genere she is writing in, but goes beyond that to create a novel of real beauty. The mystery of it all is in the whodunit, but also in the lives of her characters. I really loved this book.