The beautiful mystery

I'm taking a break from this series because the ending made me SO MAD, why the heck did inspecto beahvouir listen to the smarmy greasy franceoeur dude?? and leave gamache?? also, franceoeur giving him oxycotin illegally was CRAZY, I”m shocked that gamche hasn't tried harder to get this dude arrested. My heart is broken because Annie and Bheavorior were sooo cute.
as always, Louise Penny is a fantastic author I'm just so freaking mad at the ending that I think I need a break. i will return to this series next season.

*please ignore any spelling, i have no memory for characters names or spellings at all

This entry in the series did not appeal to me as much as the previous books. The focus was more on Jean-Guy's struggles than the solving the mystery. The combination of Jean-Guy's struggles and the convoluted story just didn't move me as much as the other entries to the series. I also missed the setting and characters of Three Pines.

Another masterpiece. I agree with some of the others who complained that the secondary narrative started to overwhelm the first. I found it pretty stressful, but satisfied with the ending. Going to look at some Gregorian chant now.

What an emotional rollercoaster. Despite missing the Three Pines group, I thought the setting and plot were perfectly ominous.

When I see the other Goodreads reviews, I think I am in a minority that prefers the books set outside of Three Pines to the ones set within.

I read this one out of order - not sure how I missed it the first time around. I really loved this book and am kind of glad I read it after I finished the rest of the series. Helped me understand a bit more about How the Light Gets In though :)

Short Review: Gamache is called to a monastery because the prior has been murdered. In part because it is at a monastery there are some good theological reflections here, but the series as a whole hints at good theological ideas. There is a faint Dan Brown thread to the story, but it is a minor point of the story. Beside the main murder, the ongoing story of Gamache and the police bureaucracy that is trying to get rid of him takes a big part of this book. I am glad that Penny alternates these books between Three Pines and other places so that we as readers both don't get bored and that there will continue to be people in three pines and they don't all get killed off as an excuse for a mystery.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/beautiful-mystery/

I sometimes feel that the books that do not take place in Three Pines are not as good. I like the familiar characters and setting, one of the benefits of reading a series and for the most part, those that have taken place outside of Three Pines have not been my favorites. The Beautiful Mystery has broken that streak.

More tense than its predecessors, The Beautiful Mystery sometimes felt like a horror/thriller. Trapped inside a centuries old monastery in the middle of the wilderness with a murderer sounds bad enough, but then you introduce an old villain and everything gets even more electrifying. There are moments that you can see coming a mile ahead and you wish you could reach into the book and stop the wreck from happening.

But you can't. And the wreck happens as intended, with pieces strewn everywhere. Leaving the reader to wonder where to go from here.

Again, the murder mystery is almost secondary to the storyline that has plagued the Chief since events even before Still Life. Here is the culmination of everything that has been working against him since the beginning. There is no happy ending here.

Started great but somewhere in the middle it lost its path and got a bit messy.