Back in Three Pines (thank heavens!) Gamache is, implausibly, given the job of policing a talk by a very controversial academic. This leads to lots of moral dilemmas, violence and ultimately a death. He and his team/family then have to find the killer, which involves a lot of historical delving, some thoroughly unlikely coincidences and yet more moral soul-searching.
Frankly, I found much of it it pretty stodgy and not very well done – something I am surprised and very sorry to have to say about a Louise Penny novel. For example, she keeps the nature of the “shocking” views of the academic from us for so long at the start that it would be a significant spoiler to reveal them, even though all the characters know what they are and react strongly to them. This went on for so long that it became ridiculous and I eventually found it very annoying. I’m afraid I found her dealing with the moral issues clumsy throughout, with some very unsubtle moralising and a disappointingly underdeveloped study of one morally abhorrent but personally charming character and another who is morally noble but personally repellent. Needless to say, everyone learns Important Life Lessons in a conclusion which I found positively cloying.
Gamache is now so saintly that there is a distinct odour of sanctimony about him, the characters of Three Pines are reduced to a thin backdrop and there are some quite absurd scenes. I can just about live with the idea that two of Canada’s most renowned academics and a Sudanese contender for the Nobel Peace Prize would all be in a tiny, unknown village for New Year, but other things were too much. For example, Gamache and Jean Guy need to leave the house for some privacy for a difficult conversation...so they go to the bistro where the whole village can hear the argument. And so on.
Even this I could just about have coped with, I think, if it weren’t for Penny’s increasingly irritating prose style. She will insist on making a clause. Into a sentence. For no reason. And it made me cross. Very cross. Indeed. It’s a cheap trick which lesser writers use to try to heighten tension. Not only is Louise Penny better than this, she does it so much and often about such trivial things that it loses all impact, save making me mutter “For heavens sake” (I paraphrase) a lot.
I did read to the end, which is more than I can say for All The Devils, but I was quite glad when I’d finished the book, which is never a good sign. I’ve rounded 2.5 stars up to 3 out of respect for an author who has written some very good books, but I think I may have reached the end of the road with Louise Penny.
(My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for en ARC via NetGalley.)
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