How the Light Gets In
Ratings56
Average rating4.4
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Maybe her best book in the series so far. Just the kind of escape I want when I read one of her books.
Book Review: How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Gamache #9) by Louise Penny - the thread of the story that has run through most of the books up until this point comes to a climax. There are some complaints about the conspiracy that the story is really all about, and I admit it is a bit far fetched, but not completely outside the realm of possibility. This seems like it should be the end of the series though. So I am not sure where the series goes after this.
My full review is on my blog http://bookwi.se/gamache-9/
The one benefit to being sick is that I have only the energy to read. And not even from a physical book that requires page turning, but just my Kindle that only needs a tap from a finger. So in a couple of days I've nearly caught up with Chief Inspector Gamache and it is brilliant.
My heart was broken at the end of The Beautiful Mystery when Beauvoir joins Francoeur on that little plane. I couldn't believe that it was really happening and like Agent Lacoste I thought maybe it was a ploy, a secret plan between Gamache and Beauvoir to infiltrate Francoeur's inner circle, but alas.
I think I've said this about the last two books as well, but truly this book was not about the murder mystery but of the events that began with Arnot well before the first book. This is the end game. And it was a nail biter.
Penny is a fantastic writer. All along she has built characters that are so deep and rich you can't help but feel you must know them as real people. She's strung us along, always with this story in the background, nipping at the heels of the Chief. Finally, it is over.
I love Three Pines. I love every person in that town and the growth of these characters was no more apparent than in this book. The villagers who rallied around good and fought against evil because they loved a man who had admitted to them he was flawed. A man who desperately wanted to fix what was broken, even if that meant breaking himself.
It is a damn good series. Probably one of the best I've read. Thankfully, there is still more story to tell.
How the Light Gets In is the 9th book in the Inspector Gamanche series and my first introduction to author Louise Penny. It reminds me a great deal of starting with book 10 of Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series. While Nesbo is all heavy metal thunder, Penny feels more like lite pop. It's Dimmu Borgir vs Box's L'Affaire Dumoutier.
Both stories speak to a larger arc established in earlier books and feature a generous cast of characters that circle the protagonist to help hime solve the crime. But while Nesbo's cold clime is dark, grey and punishing, Penny paints an idyllic small Quebec town with cozy hearths and smiling faces. I want to live in Three Pines, grab a book at Myrna's bookstore and cozy up next to the fire at Olivier and Gabri's Bed and Breakfast with 3 fingers of scotch to talk poetry with Ruth and her duck. Vacationing in Nesbo's Norway seems like an invitation to a mugging. How the Light Gets In is more a nod to classic Agatha Christie. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot reimagined as Canucks.
I sped through it because I was so nervous about how things were going to turn out and then I was sad because it was over too quickly.