Book 18 in the acclaimed and number one-bestselling Three Pines series featuring the beloved Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.

Book blurb

It’s spring and Three Pines is re-emerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should return.

But something has.

As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators’ lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village of Three Pines.

But to what end?

Gamache and Beauvoir’s memories of that tragic case, the one that first brought them together, come rushing back. Did their mother’s murder hurt them beyond repair? Have those terrible wounds, buried for decades, festered and are now about to erupt?

As Chief Inspector Gamache works to uncover answers, his alarm grows when a letter written by a long dead stone mason is discovered. In it the man describes his terror when bricking up an attic room somewhere in the village. Every word of the 150-year-old letter is filled with dread. When the room is found, the villagers decide to open it up.

As the bricks are removed, Gamache, Beauvoir and the villagers discover a world of curiosities. But the head of homicide soon realizes there’s more in that room than meets the eye. There are puzzles within puzzles, and hidden messages warning of mayhem and revenge.

In unsealing that room, an old enemy is released into their world. Into their lives. And into the very heart of Armand Gamache’s home.

My thoughts

In this, the 18th book of the Three Pines/Gamache series we move between the past and present.

The upcoming ceremony for a young woman who will be collecting her degree in engineering from the University of Montreal brings back memories for Gamache of the first case he and Jean Guy worked together. Jean Guy, a bit too mouthy for his own good is close to being thrown out of the police force when Armand finds him stuck in the basement of the area’s Police HQ where a murder victim is found and brings him in on the investigation.

Armand also recalls his time as a volunteer ambulance medic whilst he waited to hear about his police application. Attending an incident involving women who were targeted and murdered or injured by a man whose misogynistic hatred fuelled his belief that the women were studying a subject meant for men alone.

When a letter is received it opens up not only an actual hidden room full of curiosities but it opens up a wicked plot that infiltrates into the heart of Armand and Reine Marie’s home.

As ever Louise Penny has woven a complex story of what initially appears to be disparate events and brings them together so deftly that all becomes clear and leaves you marvelling at her ability to see and write these plots especially as she also adds incredible depth with the characters and the various settings including that of Three Pines. It is always a pleasure to read this series.

Book: Purchased

I read A World of Curiosities as part of the #20booksofsummer24 challenge for which I am finally catching up with my outstanding book thoughts. I will place a link to this on the round up blog post for the challenge.

Information

Published: Hodder & Stoughton (29 Nov. 2022) | 401pp

Buy: Hodder & Stoughton | AmazonSmileUK | Hive.co.uk |

The Montreal Massacre

6th December: Canada has a day of remembrance and action on violence against women. The date chosen is the anniversary of one such massacre which took place in Montreal’s Polytechnique engineering school in 1989. It became known as the École Polytechnique massacre or Montreal Massacre. The Polytechnique was specifically targeted because the women there were pursuing careers in engineering – a discipline the man who killed and maimed that day believed should be reserved for men. The Canadian Parliament has designated December the 6^th as a day in which Canadians remember ‘those who have experienced gender-based violence and those who we lost to it’.

Further reading: Canada: Indigenous women murdered (ICT news)

Author: Louise Penny is the number one New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Gamache series, including Still Life, which won the CWA John Creasey Dagger in 2006. Recipient of virtually every existing award for crime fiction, Louise was also granted the Order of Canada in 2014 and received an honorary doctorate of literature from Carleton University and the Ordre Nationale du Québec in 2017. She lives in a small village south of Montreal.

You can find out much more on Louise Penny’s website. Where you will also find the link to Louise Penny’s Facebook page and how to sign up for her newsletter. 

You can join in with the fun leading up to The Grey Wolf join the conversation at GamacheSeries.com!

Books

The Three Pines order, from the first to the most recent:

STILL LIFE | A FATAL GRACE / DEAD COLD* | THE CRUELEST MONTH | A RULE AGAINST MURDER / THE MURDER STONE* | THE BRUTAL TELLING  | BURY YOUR DEAD | A TRICK OF THE LIGHT | THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY | HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN | THE LONG WAY HOME | THE NATURE OF THE BEAST  | A GREAT RECKONING  | GLASS HOUSES | KINGDOM OF THE BLIND | A BETTER MAN | ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE | THE MADNESS OF CROWDS | A WORLD OF CURIOSITY

*This is the same book but with two titles for USA | U.K.

Coming next:

THE GREY WOLF by Louise Penny