Category Archives: Crime

March 31, 2025 · 2:56 pm

Bury Your Dead – Louise Penny

Bury Your Dead – Louise Penny

Another Chief Inspector Gamache book! I love these novels.

Here’s the blurb …

It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and surpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has come not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong. But violent death is inescapable, even in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society – where an obsessive historian’s quest for the remains of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, ends in murder. Could a secret buried with Champlain for nearly 400 years be so dreadful that someone would kill to protect it?

Although he is supposed to be on leave, Gamache cannot walk away from a crime that threatens to ignite long-smoldering tensions between the English and the French. Meanwhile, he is receiving disquieting letters from the village of Three Pines, where beloved Bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder. “It doesn’t make sense,” Olivier’s partner writes every day. “He didn’t do it, you know.” As past and present collide in this astonishing novel, Gamache must relive the terrible event of his own past before he can bury his dead.

For this one Gamache and Beauvois, both recovering from terrible injuries, separate and solve different murders. Beauvois in Three Pines looking into the Hermit’s murder (A Brutal Telling), and Gamache gets swept up into an investigation in Quebec City. Once again, the descriptions are magnificent – I want to go to Quebec City now.

The structure of this one was interesting as well. We know something terrible has happened, Gamache and Beauvois are both on leave, but the story is unfolded gradually told from their different perspectives.

A review

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March 27, 2025 · 12:46 pm

The Brutal Telling – Louise Penny

The Brutal Telling – Louise Penny

Another Chief Inspector Gamache novel – and I have started the next one! I really enjoy listening to these novels.

Here’s the blurb …

Chaos is coming, old son.

With those words the peace of Three Pines is shattered. As families prepare to head back to the city and children say goodbye to summer, a stranger is found murdered in the village bistro and antiques store. Once again, Chief Inspector Gamache and his team are called in to strip back layers of lies, exposing both treasures and rancid secrets buried in the wilderness.

No one admits to knowing the murdered man, but as secrets are revealed, chaos begins to close in on the beloved bistro owner, Olivier. How did he make such a spectacular success of his business? What past did he leave behind and why has he buried himself in this tiny village? And why does every lead in the investigation find its way back to him?

As Olivier grows more frantic, a trail of clues and treasures— from first editions of Charlotte’s Web and Jane Eyre to a spider web with the word “WOE” woven in it—lead the Chief Inspector deep into the woods and across the continent in search of the truth, and finally back to Three Pines as the little village braces for the truth and the final, brutal telling.

Once again, it’s a complicated murder with lots of twists and turns and suspects. But the best thing about these novels is the characters and the insight into their thoughts and motives.

The setting is always fabulous, and the descriptions of the food is mouth-watering.

I also enjoy the parts of the plot that involve the ‘extra’ characters. This one focused a bit on Clara and her solo show (not to mention Peter’s jealousy of her talent and now her opportunities).

A review.

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March 15, 2025 · 3:34 pm

A Rule Against Murder – Louise Penny

A Rule Against Murder – Louise Penny

I have become a fan of Louise Penny’s Gamache novels. This is the fifth one I have read (for some reason I listened to number 12 first). I do like Armand and all of the recurring characters (maybe not Peter).

Here’s the blurb …

“What happened here last night isn’t allowed,” said Madame Dubois.
It was such an extraordinary thing to say it stopped the ravenous Inspector Beauvoir from taking another bite of his roast beef on baguette.
“You have a rule against murder?” he asked.
“I do. When my husband and I bought the Bellechasse we made a pact….Everything that stepped foot on this land would be safe.”

It is the height of summer, and Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache are celebrating their wedding anniversary at Manoir Bellechasse, an isolated, luxurious inn not far from the village of Three Pines. But they’re not alone. The Finney family—rich, cultured, and respectable—has also arrived for a celebration of their own.
The beautiful Manoir Bellechasse might be surrounded by nature, but there is something unnatural looming. As the heat rises and the humidity closes in, some surprising guests turn up at the family reunion, and a terrible summer storm leaves behind a dead body. It is up to Chief Inspector Gamache to unearth secrets long buried and hatreds hidden behind polite smiles. The chase takes him to Three Pines, into the dark corners of his own life, and finally to a harrowing climax.

These novels are beautifully written with a visceral sense of place. The crimes (murders) are the skeleton of the plot, but it’s fleshed out by more character-driven themes; family relationships, selfishness, kindness, etc. And the murders are ingenious.

A review.

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March 1, 2025 · 5:03 pm

The Cruelest Month – Louise Penny

The Cruellest Month – Louise Penny

I am enamoured with the Gamache novels! This is the fourth one I have listened to – for someone reason I started with number 12. I think there is 20 of them, so I will be working on them for a while. I listened to this one (this audible version)

Here’s the blurb …

Welcome to Three Pines, where the cruelest month is about to deliver on its threat.

It’s spring in the tiny, forgotten village; buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly thawed earth. But not everything is meant to return to life. . .

When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, they are hoping to rid the town of its evil—until one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death, or was the victim somehow helped along?

Brilliant, compassionate Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is called to investigate, in a case that will force him to face his own ghosts as well as those of a seemingly idyllic town where relationships are far more dangerous than they seem.

I do like the Three Pine’s locals’ stories progressing: Clara and the very jealous Peter (I wish we could see Clara’s paintings), Ruth and her ‘babies’, etc. Even Agent Niccol is improving. This was another interesting murder – very cunningly planned. We still have the machinations at the Sûreté headquarters and Armand Gamache is his usual charming, kind self.

A review

I am very much looking forward to listening/reading the next one (A Rule Against Murder). I am currently listening to Misdirected by Lucy Parker, which is fabulous (read by Nicola Coughlan and Gwilym Lee).

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February 13, 2025 · 8:01 pm

A Fatal Grace – Louise Penny

A Fatal Grace – Louise Penny

I read the twelfth novel in this series (A Great Reckoning) and was enthralled, so I have started reading the series. I listened to Still Life on holiday (so no blog), but I have just finished listening to A Fatal Grace.

Here’s the blurb …

Welcome to winter in Three Pines, a picturesque village in Quebec, where the villagers are preparing for a traditional country Christmas, and someone is preparing for murder.

No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter—and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. CC de Poitiers managed to alienate everyone, right up until the moment of her death.

When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, of the Sûreté du Québec, is called to investigate, he quickly realizes he’s dealing with someone quite extraordinary. CC de Poitiers was electrocuted in the middle of a frozen lake, in front of the entire village, as she watched the annual curling tournament. And yet no one saw anything. Who could have been insane enough to try such a macabre method of murder—or brilliant enough to succeed?

With his trademark compassion and courage, Gamache digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life to find the dangerous secrets long buried there. For a Quebec winter is not only staggeringly beautiful but deadly, and the people of Three Pines know better than to reveal too much of themselves. But other dangers are becoming clear to Gamache. As a bitter wind blows into the village, something even more chilling is coming for Gamache himself.

We’re back in Three Pines with the usual locals, and a new and very complicated murder. It’s winter and I love all of the wintery references (it’s Summer and hot here). Gamache and his wife are delightful as are the residents of Three Pines (apart from Ruth). Reading these novels (despite the murders) is like having a cosy holiday.

The novel is beautifully written, and the sense of place is extraordinary. I also like being in different characters heads – Yvette Nicole is quite something.

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January 15, 2025 · 2:55 pm

A Great Reckoning – Louise Penny

A Great Reckoning – Louise Penny

I came across this while searching my husband’s audible library – I haven’t read any of the previous novels (this is novel 12), so I have probably spoiled the earlier ones for myself. I liked it, I am planning on reading the first one while on a road trip.

Here’s the blurb …

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes.

Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must.

And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Everywhere Gamache turns, he sees Amelia Choquet, one of the cadets. Tattooed and pierced. Guarded and angry. Amelia is more likely to be found on the other side of a police line-up. And yet she is in the academy. A protégée of the murdered professor.

The focus of the investigation soon turns to Gamache himself and his mysterious relationship with Amelia, and his possible involvement in the crime. The frantic search for answers takes the investigators back to Three Pines and a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets.

For both Amelia Choquet and Armand Gamache, the time has come for a great reckoning.

Number-one New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny pulls back the layers to reveal a brilliant and emotionally powerful truth in her latest spellbinding novel.

I loved the setting, the characters and the plot. I loved the map and the Three Pines community. The emphasis on kindness and empathy, and not believing everything you think. It’s about second chances and that there is always a road back.

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December 22, 2024 · 5:46 pm

Treasure and Dirt – Chris Hammer

Treasure and Dirt – Chris Hammer

I came across this on the Audible account and decided to give it a go. I have already read Scrublands, which I enjoyed (and I liked the adaptation), and I am a bit of a fan of Australian noir.

Here’s the blurb …

In the desolate outback town of Finnigans Gap, police struggle to maintain law and order. Thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable young people and billionaires do as they please.

Then an opal miner is found crucified and left to rot down his mine. Nothing about the miner’s death is straightforward, not even who found the body. Sydney homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to investigate, assisted by inexperienced young investigator Nell Buchanan.

But Finnigans Gap has already ended one police career and damaged others, and soon both officers face damning allegations and internal investigations. Have Ivan and Nell been set up and, if so, by whom?

As time runs out, their only chance at redemption is to find the killer. But the more secrets they uncover, the more harrowing the mystery becomes, as events from years ago take on a startling new significance.

For in Finnigans Gap, opals, bodies and secrets don’t stay buried for ever.

The descriptions of the heat, dust and flies were visceral. The two main characters (Ivan and Nell) are flawed, but good people, and we meet a cast of quirky out-back characters. For example, ‘the mayor’ with his tutu and armoured people carrier, ‘bullshit’ Bob, the Seer, and Trevor Topsoil (the names are very Dickensian). There’s twists and turns, conspiracies, and murder. A very satisfying read.

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December 16, 2024 · 4:14 pm

I Have Some Questions For You – Rebecca Makkai

I Have Some Questions for You – Rebecca Makkai

I bought this novel last year some time, and then it languished (same old story). I have moved my TBR to a more obvious place and I am hoping that encourages me to read them.

Here’s the blurb …

A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past—the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie.

But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent ?aws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t as much of an outsider at Granby as she’d thought—if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.

I preferred part one to part two, in fact, part two dragged a bit for me (although there were still surprises). This was a very clever literary crime novel – a young victim, several possible suspects, is an innocent man in gaol? It’s also a boarding school story, and a story about outsiders, plus it comments on the vulnerability of women.

The characters were well-written, and the plot was very believable.

Here are some quotes

Research has always been my happy place. It might be related to my sometime collecting of facts about my peers, an attempt to feel safer by mapping the world.

I have to resist the urge to self-mythologise, to paint my own journey as harder than everyone else’s just so I can give myself credit for getting out.

And then Thalia dies – the way her body had been mangled – the way she had been tossed in the water – the way every girls was just a body to be used, to be discarded – the way that if you had a body, they could grab you – if you had a body, they could destroy you –

A review

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December 2, 2024 · 12:07 pm

Now or Never – Janet Evanovich

Now or Never – Janet Evanovich

At the end of the last one – Dirty Thirty – we were left with a romantic cliff-hangar. This novel starts where that one left off.

Here’s the blurb …

She said yes to Morelli. She said yes to Ranger. Now Stephanie Plum has two fiancés and no idea what to do about it. But the way things are going, she might not live long enough to marry anyone.

While Stephanie stalls for time, she buries herself in her work as a bounty hunter, tracking down an unusually varied assortment of fugitives from justice. There’s Eugene Fleck, a seemingly sweet online influencer who might also be YouTube star Robin Hoodie, masked hero to the homeless, who hijacks delivery trucks and distributes their contents to the needy. She’s also on the trail of Bruno Jug, a wealthy and connected man in the wholesale produce business who is rumored to traffic young girls alongside lettuce and tomatoes. Most terrifying of all is Zoran—a laundromat manager by day and self-proclaimed vampire by night with a taste for the blood of pretty girls. When he shows up on Stephanie’s doorstep, it’s not for the meatloaf dinner.

With timely assists from her stalwart supporters Lula, Connie, and Grandma Mazur, Stephanie uses every trick in the book to reel in these men. But only she can decide what to do about the two men she actually loves. She can’t hold Ranger and Morelli at bay for long, and she’s keeping a secret from them that is the biggest bombshell of all. Now or never, she’s got to make the decision of a lifetime.

As usual this was a fun, light and easy read. Lulu is hilarious, quote below when discussing the terrifying Zoran who thinks he is a vampire.

And here’s the good news. He’ll get free dental. He can get his fangs filed down so he fits into the prison population better.

and

Bikes for the homeless is an excellent idea. It’s a way for them to get exercise instead of nodding off on the sidewalk at all hours or sitting around in their tent all day. I don’t know why people didn’t think of this sooner. It’ll let them get to a variety of soup kitchens and detox clinics, and it’ll enlarge their panhandling ability.

I have been reading these books for a long time – I read number 9 when I was in hospital after the birth of my daughter (she’s 21 now). I thought this one might be the last, but the very final sentence is ‘Not the end’, so there will be more.

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November 30, 2024 · 12:07 pm

La Vie N’est Pas Un Roman De Susan Cooper – Stéphane Carlier

La Vie N’est Pas Un Roman De Susan Cooper – Stéphane Carlier

I have been learning french for a long time. I started at Alliance Française, and then Duolingo (I finished the French ‘tree’) and now Lingoda. While I was in Paris, I bought this novel. I struggled a bit because my vocabulary is not extensive, but I think I understood and appreciated the story.

Here’s the blurb …

Susan Cooper, romancière britannique établie à Paris, écrit des polars lus dans le monde entier. Alors qu’elle s’apprête à se rendre au Salon du livre de Monaco, une jeune femme qu’elle ne connaît pas la contacte via Instagram et lui annonce qu’elle a tué un homme quelques heures plus tôt. Que répondre à cet étrange message ? D’ailleurs, faut-il y répondre ? Le plus sage serait sans doute de l’ignorer. Mais, c’est bien connu, les écrivains sont par nature des gens curieux…

I will try to translate

Susan Cooper, a British novelist living in Paris, writes crime novels read all over the world. While she was getting ready to go to the Salon of Books Of Monaco, a young woman who she didn’t know contacted her via Instragam and she announces that she had killed a man a few hours earlier. How to respond to this strange message. Besides was it necessary to respond? The prudent thing would be without a doubt to ignore it. But it is well-Known that writers are by nature curious people …

It took me a while to read it, I started in August. The plot was interesting, but my french is not good enough to comment on the writing. I did enjoy increasing my vocabulary, particularly with words and phrases more informal than you learn in class.

Now I am reading La Vie Pourrie d’Ellie by Lucy Vine. I found my copy at the local school fête. I think it is an english novel translated into french.

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