State of Terror

GoodNESS this book bored me. The most excited I got was the first mention of Ruth Zardo. Then not again until Three Pines and Gamache. That tells me I should just stick to Louise Penny's solo books.
Is that the only part that Penny contributed?

To be fair, I'm generally not a reader of political thrillers, especially when the bad guys are always either Middle Eastern or Russian. So, if you are a fan of political thrillers you might find this much more engrossing than I did.