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apechild 's review for:
The Murder Stone
by Louise Penny
Another great crime story by Louise Penny. It's the second one I read, and I do find they work very well as standalones, but I think I would like to read the full stories of the characters now. The first of the books I read, the Madness of Crowds, is much further on in the series than this one, only at number 4, and it would seem there needs to be a few house moves and divorces to get some of the characters to where they need to be for the later books. How did all that happen? I am curious...
So, it's a tale of French Canada, and Armand Gamache is going on an anniversary holiday with his wife to a pretty log mansion at the head of a lake in the forests. It's hot. There's a storm coming, and murder's on the way. Unfortunately for him a truely awful, privileged, rich, arrogant, unfeeling, vindictive... can I think of any more adjectives!... family is also turning up for a reunion. And they have axes to grind. There are some true characters you can love to hate in this family of Morrows. I think one of the worst has to be the youngest daughter Mariana, who, in order to annoy her mother, calls her child Bean, and refuses to let anyone in the family know what gender Bean is. During the book she muses that Bean isn't an annoying enough name and considers renaming her child syphillis to annoy her mother even more. Just to give an idea of how awful these people are.
The murder itself is a curiosity as the victim is crushed by a massive statue, impossible to move. Who? How? Why? I have to admit I enjoyed losing myself in the plot and had no idea who had done it or why, although (slightly smug) I did get pretty close to figuring out how it was done before all was revealed.
Really loving this series.
So, it's a tale of French Canada, and Armand Gamache is going on an anniversary holiday with his wife to a pretty log mansion at the head of a lake in the forests. It's hot. There's a storm coming, and murder's on the way. Unfortunately for him a truely awful, privileged, rich, arrogant, unfeeling, vindictive... can I think of any more adjectives!... family is also turning up for a reunion. And they have axes to grind. There are some true characters you can love to hate in this family of Morrows. I think one of the worst has to be the youngest daughter Mariana, who, in order to annoy her mother, calls her child Bean, and refuses to let anyone in the family know what gender Bean is. During the book she muses that Bean isn't an annoying enough name and considers renaming her child syphillis to annoy her mother even more. Just to give an idea of how awful these people are.
The murder itself is a curiosity as the victim is crushed by a massive statue, impossible to move. Who? How? Why? I have to admit I enjoyed losing myself in the plot and had no idea who had done it or why, although (slightly smug) I did get pretty close to figuring out how it was done before all was revealed.
Really loving this series.