Book Around the Corner

The Cruelest Month (2007) and The Murder Stone (2008) by Louise Penny. French titles: Le mois le plus cruel and Défense de tuer. Translated by Michel Saint-Germain / Claire and Louise Chabalier.

I have read two Louise Penny in a row, The Cruelest Month and The Murder Stone, #3 and #4 in the Armand Gamache series and the two have a very different vibe. Louise Penny is famous for her village of Three Pines, nested in the Canadian Appalachians, in Québec, near the American border. Besides the team of the Sécurité du Québec, the main characters are Peter and Clara Morrow, both painters settled in Three Pines and pillars of their community.

The Cruelest Month is the darkest on two aspects. We’re in Three Pines again and it’s Easter time. The villagers are organizing an egg hunt. The bed and breakfast is expecting a medium as a guest and a séance is quickly organized at the old Hadley house, where a murder has already occurred.

The place creeps out the participants and suddenly, one of the participants dies of a heart attack. It’s as if she had died out of fear after a bird disturbed the séance. Of course, it’s not a banal heart attack but a murder. Armand Gamache comes with his team to handle the case and while they’re investigating the murder, a terrible smear campaign is organized against him. Part of the police institution never accepted that he revealed the wrongdoings of members of the Sécurité du Québec against indigenous people. Gamache has become a target.

The Murder Stone is a more classic whodunit with Poirot flavor. A rich family gathers at the Manoir Bellechasse, a holiday house by a lake and rather far away from civilization. They are there for their yearly reunion, to celebrate the donation of a statue of their deceased patriarch. We soon discover that Mrs Finney is the former Mrs Morrow and her son is the Peter Morrow who lives in Three Pines with his artist wife Clara. The Morrow children carry the scars of a dysfunctional family, all seeking their father’s love and approval at the expense of their relationship as siblings. Julia, the oldest daughter gets killed when the statue falls down on her. It looks like an accident but guess what? It’s a murder.

Like Poirot, Gamache happens to be at the Manoir Bellechasse with his wife Reine-Marie. They celebrate their wedding anniversary at the manor every year. Gamache’s team joins him on site and they start the investigation.

As in every book of the series, Gamache faces a personal challenge and this time, his relationship with his son is at stake when Gamache rejects the name Honoré for his future grand-son. It was his own father’s name and he was notorious for his behavior during WWII.

I preferred the second book as I don’t care for stories with séances and ghosts. I don’t understand why Louise Penny chose such an improbable setting. However, I enjoyed the cozy crime vibe of The Murder Stone. How to kill someone with a statue was a fun fact of the novel, I reckon.

I was happy to see Three Pines again and reunite with what makes the flavor of Penny’s books. The village is set in Québec, among the anglophone community and the little digs about each community’s habits sound authentic and build the sense of place. Louise Penny writes in English and I read the Québec translation, which keeps all the little language quirks that I love so much.

The complex relationship between Clara and Peter Morrow is well-developed. Both are painters and Clara has just been discovered by a famous gallerist of Montreal. Peter already sells well but wonders if Clara’s not a more gifted painter than he is. On her side, she’s eager to have his approval since she loves him and knows that he already won the public’s recognition.

The Murder Stone is an opportunity to explore Peter Morrow’s and Armand Gamache’s pasts. It is also a reflection on fatherhood and the way children always seek their father’s approval. The Morrow children did, in their own way. Gamache had to live with his father’s reputation and his relationship with his son Daniel hits a bump on Daniel’s road to fatherhood.

Despite the murders, a lot of kindness oozes of Penny’s books and it’s a treat to spend time in Three Pines with Gamache and his troops. There are 17 volumes in the Gamache series, and the good news is that I still have thirteen books of pleasure ahead of me!