A World of Curiosities: A Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery, NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES CALLED THREE PINES

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Godyear, Sheena (5 Dec 2022). "How a Montreal Massacre survivor became a character in a Louise Penny detective novel". CBC. They didn’t need proof. All a woman had to be was alive. Just being a woman was, in the church’s eyes, evil.’

a b "The Paston Treasure, Microcosm of the Known World / East Anglia Art Fund". Eastangliaartfund.org.uk . Retrieved 28 February 2017.A World of Curiosities is a fiction book written by Canadian author and former journalist Louise Penny. It is the 18th novel in a series of mystery novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. [1] It was published by Minotaur Books [2] as a sequel to Penny's 2021 book The Madness of Crowds. [3] As ever, my real interest in this novel is what lies beyond the plot and the characterisation. Louise Penny frequently introduces a key theme into her narrative to explore the darker side of human nature or to shine a light on a contemporary issue. In the past we’ve had jealousy, euthanasia, police corruption, prescription drug addiction and PTSD.

A copy of a painting, the original of which is in England: The Paston Treasure, (yes, it’s a real painting) at Norwich Castle Museum, depicts objects from the collections of a local landed family. The Pastons established one of the most extensive cabinets of rarities and curiosities in seventeenth-century England—it boasted no fewer than six hundred decorative art objects, including shell cups, crystal vessels, a pair of crocodiles, gemstones, musical instruments, and paintings. Some guy (not revealed until later) makes a copy of this painting and has contemporary images superimposed on some of the original objects and hides it in a sealed room in a house in Three Pines. I was just thinking about Anne Lamarque. . . She was punished for many things, including being happy. So I wanted to capture that. The power of it. Happiness as an act of defiance. A revolutionary act."

The book’s present is set in Three Pines following a graduation ceremony of college engineering graduates Harriet Landers and Fiona Arsenault, the now-grown female sibling from the earlier case. Fiona is staying with the Gamache family while her charismatic brother Sam, mistrusted by Gamache but not Beauvoir, is staying nearby. This part also works: Sam is clearly a malevolent force, and while we do see Fiona manipulating others, the novel sets up enough question marks that it’s unclear if Sam or Fiona is the ringleader. Gamache believes that Sam has it out for him while Beauvoir worries that Fiona is not to be trusted. She said it now, toothpaste foaming on her lips, but had the sinking feeling it was too late. The magic wouldn’t work. And if there was any day when she needed magic, it was today. Virtuoso… blends nuanced characterization with nail-biting suspense…This tale of forgiveness and redemption will resonate with many.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review) The only fly in the ointment for Gamache is that Fiona's brother Sam, whom Gamache dislikes and distrusts, is coming to town for a visit.

The attic space also contains other odds and ends, including a medieval grimoire - a book with magic spells and incantations. Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel. On the real world side of the ledger, I found her depiction of one psychopath completely unnerving. So many books labeled as "psychological thrillers" these days are, IMNSHO, duds, leaving me with the feeling that the victims (typically women) are simplistic idiots. Not so here! In a few scenes scattered throughout the book, the menace bubbling below the surface of this character made my hair stand on end. 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.Penny delves into the nature of evil, sensitively exploring the impact of the dreadful events she describes while bringing a warmth and humanity to her disparate cast of characters that, unusually for a crime novel, leaves you feeling better about the world once you’ve finished’ BOOK OF THE MONTH, OBSERVER A World of Curiosities is Louise Penny's 18th novel in a series featuring the fictional character Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Robert Bathurst, who does a good job, though his 'women's voices' are a bit off.