Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

Read in October, another well written, suspenseful mystery set in and around fictional Three Pines, and Montreal featuring Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache,  The author is consistenly good at keeping the suspense and yet planting seeds of wondering.  The great characters of the Three Pines Village are at it again and this time, Gamache is awaiting news of his suspension.  That in itself adds another twist to the mystery.  Paperback,513 pages, this edition published 2018.   On page 236 we get the origin of the title, "in the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king."  but there are plenty of references to blind through out the book.  A memorable quote in this mystery, page 440, Myrna replies to Jean-Guy, who has proposed that reality may not matter what matters is what people believe, "People were capable of believing almost anything.  And hope was even more sweeping and powerful."

Back cover

I learned about poison gardens, pages 90-91 and that certain plants including hydrangeas and lily of the valley are toxic.  Some I knew but not those and I was unfamiliar with a poison garden.  The mystery involves the death of a woman, a stranger, the Baroness,appoints  Gamache, Myrna and another young man, Benedict Pouiliot, as tri executors of her will, despite leaving behind  3 adult children. 

Acknowledgements by author

The book begins, " Armand Gamache slowed his car to a crawl, then stopped on the snow covered secondary road.  This was it, he supposed.  Pulling in he drove between the tall pines until he reached the clearing.  ......Putting on his reading glasses, he rubbed his face.  And read it again.  It was an invitation of sorts to this desolate place...."  It is an old desolate farmhouse, the former residence of the woman, Bertha Baumgartner.  It is  a building in need of demolition but where the attorney Maitre Merciere  chooses to reveal their task to them.  

So the adventure of the three begins.  There is comedy amidst the pathos and mystery, reference to Charles Dickens characters to the attorney Merciere.  Particularly comical is the description of Benedict's arrival as Dr Seuss meets Charles Dickens, or the Cat in the Hat enters.   No mistake this mystery will intrigue until the end.  And there will be another story within the tale, about Armand's suspension and his  attempt to retrieve opiods from the streets.  The opiods were lost in an arrest and will devastate many unless stopped.  We meet Amerlia, a candidate at the academy of the Surete who is a rising star but is  kicked out and who now is amidst the junkies.  She will turn out to be a secret weapon of Gamache. 

A ll in all another 5 ***** mystery.   It has been awhile since I read a Penny mystery and delighted in the suspense and characters.  

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

Published in 2017, 388 pages, another tale set in the fictional village of Three Pines, featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache who has been promoted as chief of the entire Surete.  The author's notes, page 391, "Some might argue that Three Pines itself isn't real, and they'd be right but limited in their view.  The village does not exist, physically.  But I think of it as existing in ways that are far more important and powerful.  Three Pines is a state of mind.  When we choose tolerance over hate.  Kindness over cruelty.  Goodness over bullying.  When we choose to be hopeful, not cynical.  Then we live in Three Pines."  

 I will mention that I am not enjoying all the same sex partners and relationships that the author keeps introducing into the novels, I wonder if she has taken up this cause and wants to push readers tolerance.  Not so sure I will read many more of her novels if this is the pattern.  

Noble sentiments are woven through the characters who reappear in this novel, which Louise Penny finished after the death of her husband in 2016.  Glass Houses introduces and embellishes on  a Spanish custom/legend, the cobrador del frac.  The cobrador appears in the center of Three Pines causing the villagers to wonder and  become agitated by its presence after days.  The cobrador legend ranges to medieval times and today in Spain exists, dressing in top hat and tails , following debtors to shame  and embarrass them into paying their debts.  In this novel the cobrador is a conscience not a debt collector. I did enjoy this nostalgic history, embellished or not.    

Back cover

As in other novels there is a murder to be solved but this time the body is discovered in the church basement by Reine-Marie, Armand's wife.  They have moved to Three Pines as a refuge from the hustle and bustle of Montreal.  The Novel begins in late fall, Page 15, " It was the beginning of November and the weather wasn't letting them forget it.  ...November was the transition month.  A sort of purgatory.  It was the cold damp breath between dying and death.  Between fall and the dead of winter.  It was no one's favorite month."   I must disagree because November is my birthday month!

This is a  rather contemporary mystery about drugs, cartels, and the ongoing war on drugs between the law enforcement agencies and the criminals, the dealers,and  the kingpins. Armand has admitted and realized that law enforcement is losing the war on drugs but he has a careful, long term view to wind the final battle.  Page 39, "The war on drugs was lost a long time ago.  That was bad enough, but what's happened is the knock on effect.  If drugs are out of control, it isn't long before we lose our grip on all crime..  We aren't there yet."   

Page 204, "It had started as these things did, naturally enough.  As steps in the grieving process.  But where the final step should have been acceptance, the person had veered off.  Stepped away from the path and walked deeper and deeper into sorrow and rage.  Fueled by guilt.  Until they'd gotten themselves all turned around.  And when they were well and truly lost, they'd found refuge.  In revenge.,"

Page 303, "Corruption starts small, often justifiable.  A white lie.  A minor law violated for the greater good.  And then the corruption, like a virus, spreads."  This novel revolves around that corruption embedded into the depths of government of the law.    I was not fully surprised by the real story behind the guilty parties and felt that part of the novel dragged on along excessively.  

I give this book a 4 ****, worth reading but not a favorite for me.  

Still Life by Louise Penny

Finished this book, 312 pages  in a few nights as I battle off a coughing hacking cold that descended upon me.  An excellent read, published in 2005, proving yet again that there are many wonderful books, mysteries , not necessarily just current best sellers.  I am grateful to my friend who found it and sent it to me.  I will be passing it along now to another friend.  So many of the  great characters continue with Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Detective Beauvoir of the Surete du Quebec solving a murder back in the fictional village of Three Pines, outside of Montreal. The suspense and writing are every bit as intriguing as the first Louise Penny I read, in 2017,"The Brutal Feeling" and posted my review here finally January, 2018.  Louise Penny knows how to keep the mystery a secret up until the end as with the other book, I never correctly guessed  "who done it?" until she reveals it  near the end of the book, page 291 and with an almost dire outcome avoided by the detectives.  

It was a return to the familiar with many of the same characters in Three Pines, Gabri, Olivier, Ruth the eccentric,  Myrna, Clara and Peter and with new additions, Ben, Yolande, Timmer and  Nicole, a detective trainee whom Armande sends packing. This book I learned that Myrna is a black woman, something I had not gotten reading the other.  Fortunately the book stands on its own and one need not read any of these in sequence or from the beginning.   

Back cover

This tale focuses on the death of Jane Neal, an elderly village lady, at first it is assumed to be accidental but quickly turns to murder by bow and arrow, yet.  Page 1 begins"  Miss Jane Neal met her maker in the early morning mist of Thanksgiving Sunday.  It was pretty much a surprise all round.  Miss Neal's was not a natural death, unless you're of the belief everything happens as its supposed to.  If so, for her seventy six years Jane Neal had been walking toward this final moment when death met her in the brilliant maple woods on the verge of the village of Three Pines.  She'd fallen spread-eagled, as though making angels in the bright and brittle leaves."    Descriptive writing, and the scene is set.  

Pg 20, Clara and Ben are talking,  "Oscar Wilde said that conscience and cowardice are the same thing.  What stops us from doing horrible things isn't our conscience but the fear of getting caught."  

Pg 24, "Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table," Jane said almost under her breath.  

Looking back now after finishing this I can see just how the author  draws the reader in, with clues that do not seem more than part of the conversation.  I did not get this until I began writing this.review, yet they wqere quotes I had identified as ones I would include here.  

Pg. 47 Gamache is reflecting, , "And the pall of grief that settled on this little community was worn with dignity and sadness and a certain familiarity.  This village was old and you don't get to be old without knowing grief.  And loss.."  

Pg. 140, Myrna is discussing choices, faults, quoting Shakespeare , "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.....  "The vast majority of troubled people don't get it, the fault is here but so is the solution.  That's the grace." 

Pg. 279, Gamache is marveling "at the people who chose to live in this area.  Was Margaret Atwood a garbage collector perhaps?.......No one was who they seemed.  Everyone was more And one person in this room was very much more."  

Pg 303, "This is what comes of trust and friendship, loyalty and love, thought Peter.  You get screwed.  Betrayed.  You get wounded so deeply you can barely breathe and sometimes it kills you.  ......."

A 5 ***** read thoroughly enjoyed and savored it.