Published 2022 by Hodder & Stoughton
390 pages
Armand Gamache & Three Pines series, book 18
Grade 5/5
I will absolutely read more from this author.
Genre: crime
Keywords: murder, Three Pine village, pedophilia, revenge, painting: A World Of Curiosities, witches, persecution of women, evil, kindness, Canada, chief detective Gamache, mentally sick, mentally healthy.
Wouw, what a story and what a plot!
As always in this series there are many layers and things that surprise; in the book it is characterized as a repeated quote by WH Auden:
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye
We are in the Three Pines Village with all the friends, Myrna the retired psychologist and present bookshop owner, she has a boyfriend, Billy, he is new. Clara the artist and painter; Ruth the brilliant poet and her duck, Rosa, Gabi & Oliver the bistro owners; and of course, our hero, chief detective Armand Gamache and his wife, Rein-Marie; Armand’s second in command and son -in-law Jean-Guy Beauvoir.
For the first time in this series, we get the whole story about how Armand and Jean- Guy met and started to work together; their first case is at the base of what goes on in this book.
About how Fiona and her brother Sam were abused sexually and how bad child abuse damages the children; the book questions whether there is hope for such children, can they be helped? Armand and Rein-Marie believe so and have sponsored Fiona; she was sentenced as 14 years old as an adult for having killed their mother, who had sold her and her brother, Sam, to who ever wanted them sexually, especially in the local police department. Armand believes the system and he himself let her down; he has severe reservations about her younger brother who was ten when their mother was killed; was he the brain behind the murder? Is he healthy or psychologically sick? Myrna tried to assess him when Fiona came up for parole, but had to give up Harriet is Myrna’s niece she falls in love with Sam, should Myrna warn her? Should Armand? Or is that gossip and rumors not based on facts?
There are not many people Armand is afraid of, from a earlier book in the series (The Nature of the Beast) we know John Fleming, Armand knows he is in a maximum security prison, or is he?
Harriet, a newly educated engineer, often visits her aunt, but the flat is too small now that Myrna is living with Bill, so they consider moving when the engineers realize that there is an extra- room hidden behind one of the walls over the bookshop. Billy, whose family were builders and masons for at least 4-5 generations, had some weeks ago received a letter from 160 years ago about how his forefather written to his wife, had been requested to close off a room in the village and never talk about it. Our friends decide to open the room and inside they find a huge copy of a well-known painting from the 16th century; a painting with many unanswered questions surrounding it: A World of curiosities or the Paston Treasure, which is in reality on display at the Norwich Castle, UK; this is a copy from their website:
The copy of the painting has any modern things added, that makes it obvious that the painting has not been in this room for 160 years, so how did it get in there? IN the room they also found a witch’s book from the 16th hundred, a grimoire, a book Rein-Marie has been looking for. In old days when a woman could read and write and think for herself, she was considered a witch by the catholic church, who tortured and burned them or banned them from 'civilized' society. Ruth raises the question whether Three Pines Village originally had been established by 'witches' banned from 'civilized' society.
Throughout the book the status of women is discussed, all the women in the book: Rein-Marie, Myrna, Clara and Ruth would all have been considered witches in times past. This comes together with Montreal Massacre, 6th December 1989 where 14 young women engineering students were killed at the Ecole Polytechnique; which is remembered at each and every graduation ceremony ever since. In the book Harriet graduates and also Fiona, both as engineers (a man's world); so the book commemorates a real event, as well as one of the survivors, Nathalie Provost, who has approved the writing.
Certain parts of society even today are still not accepting women on equal terms.
As always in these books there as so many layers and far more than seen in an average crime novel, just like the motto of the book says: there is more than meets the eyes.
The Three Pines Village books are considered ‘cozy- crime novels’ but in this book, there is EVIL that generates horror, and causes Armand to send Rein-Marie to London, away from the village, under cover to investigate “The World of Curiosity” painting. Daniel and Annie, Armand’s children, and their families, are sent to a secret house to be safe with police to guard them.
For a book in what is generally considered a cozy-crime series there are a lot of murders: I believe five or six in addition to the 14 women murdered at the Montreal Massacre.
I am so looking forward to the next book in this series.
Thank you, Louise Penny, great work! I believe this is your best book ever.
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