How the Light Gets In

Starred review from June 10, 2013
Complex characterizations and sophisticated plotting distinguish Agatha-winner Penny’s masterful ninth novel (after 2012’s The Beautiful Mystery). The devastating conclusion to the previous book saw Jean-Guy Beauvoir abandon his mentor, Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Quebec Sûreté, and return to substance abuse. Things have never looked bleaker for the unassuming and empathic Gamache. A corrupt superior has gutted his homicide department, and the agents he now supervises treat their cases with blatant indifference. Amid all this personal and professional turmoil, Gamache lands a strange murder case. There’s no obvious motive for why somebody killed elderly Constance Ouellet—the only living member of a set of quintuplets who were national celebrities in their youth—by striking her in the head with a lamp. Fair-play clues lead to a surprising solution to the murder, while Gamache’s battle to save his career unfolds with subtlety and intelligence. Once again, Penny impressively balances personal courage and faith with heartbreaking choices and monstrous evil. First printing of 300,000; author tour. Agent: Patty Moosbrugger, Teresa Chris Literary Agency.

Starred review from April 15, 2013
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec is pushed toward retirement. It's a great relief for Inspector Gamache to get out of the office and head for Three Pines to help therapist-turned-bookseller Myrna find out why her friend Constance Pineault didn't turn up for Christmas. Except for Isabelle Lacoste, Gamache's staff has been gutted by Chief Superintendent Francoeur. Gamache's decisions have been mostly ignored and bets placed on how soon he'll admit redundancy and retire. Even worse, a recent tragedy (The Beautiful Mystery, 2012, etc.) has led his second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, to transfer out of Gamache's department, fall sway to prescription drugs and hold his former boss in contempt. En route to Three Pines, Gamache happens upon a fatality at the Champlain Bridge and agrees to handle the details. But this case takes a back seat to the disappearance of Constance when she turns up dead in her home. Myrna confides Constance's secret: As the last surviving Ouellet quintuplet, she'd spent her adult years craving privacy after the national publicity surrounding the birth of the five sisters had turned them into daily newspaper fodder. Why would anyone want to murder this reclusive woman of 79? The answer is developed through clues worthy of Agatha Christie that Gamache interprets while dealing with the dismemberment of his homicide department by Francoeur, who's been plotting a major insult to Canadian government for 30 years. Matters come to a head when Gamache and the one Surete chief still loyal to him and her husband, a computer whiz, are tracked to Three Pines, where Beauvoir awaits, gun in hand. Of the three intertwined plots, the Francoeur scheme is the deadliest, and the Ouellet saga will remind readers of the real-life Dionne family debacle of the 1940s. But it's Three Pines, with its quirky tenants, resident duck and luminous insights into trust and friendship, that will hook readers and keep them hooked.

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Starred review from July 1, 2013

This follow-up to the Agatha Award-winning The Beautiful Mystery finds Chief Inspector Gamache and the Homicide Division that he has created at his beloved Surete du Quebec at their lowest ebb. His formerly top-notch division is tatters, his crack agents have scattered to other units, and his cherished lieutenant, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, has been set on a path of addiction and destruction by Gamache's greatest enemy, the head of the Surete. It appears that Gamache is being herded toward retirement by the forces arrayed against him. In the middle of this corrupt bureaucratic war, there is one more murder involving Gamache's friends in the village of Three Pines. And as Gamache works tirelessly to solve the crime, he uses the cover of routine police work to show his friends, his remaining allies, and, most of all, his loyal readers that he might appear down, but he is never out. VERDICT Penny's mysteries are really character studies. There is police procedure being followed, but the forensics take second place to Gamache's absolutely fascinating probe into the characters of every single person involved in the investigation: the police, the witnesses, and especially the suspects. He cares passionately about each person and makes the reader care. Highly recommended for mystery lovers, readers who enjoy character-driven mysteries, and those who like seeing good triumph and evil get its just desserts. [300,000-copy first printing.]--Marlene Harris, Seattle P.L.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2013
When we last saw Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sret' du Qu'bec, he was solving the murder of a cloistered monk (The Beautiful Mystery, 2012). No problem there, but in the process, his relationship with his deputy, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, imploded, leaving Jean-Guy back on prescription drugs and in league with Gamache's enemies within the police force. That situation has only worsened, as Gamache's attempts to expose corruption and evil-doing at the highest levels of the force have prompted a vicious counterattack, leaving the chief inspector vulnerable professionally and personally. Into that cauldron comes a new murder case involving the death of the last surviving sister of quintuplets, whose birth and early life prompted a Canadian media frenzy in the mid-twentieth century. The dead woman has ties to a resident of Three Pines, the idyllic, off-the-grid village outside Montreal where several of Gamache's previous adventures have been set. Penny does something very clever here, something that heightens the tension and the emotional intensity of the novel: she not only puts Gamache in harm's way but also exposes Three Pines itself to defilement, forcing the reader to face the realization that a place too good for its time may cease to exist as we know ita cozy setting under attack from a decidedly hard-boiled world. Penny has always used setting to support theme brilliantly, but here she outdoes herself, contrasting light and dark, innocence and experience, goodness and evil both in the emotional lives of her characters and in the way those characters leave their footprints on the landscape. Another bravura performance from an author who has reinvented the village mystery as profoundly as Dashiell Hammett transformed the detective novel. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Penny's last novel received a 100,000-copy first printing. This one triples that, only one indication that, in Penny's case, literary quality and commercial success are feeding one another.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 28, 2013
The avuncular voice of narrator Ralph Cosham—British, seasoned with more than a hint of Quebecois—fully expresses the mood of wistful regret that permeates this ninth (and perhaps last) chronicle of Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec. This time, while being pushed to the brink of retirement, the shrewd sleuth also has to juggle a host of problems. His formerly faithful second-in-command and potential son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, is suffering from drug problems. Nearly all of Gamache’s ultra-efficient homicide team have been re-assigned by the villainous chief superintendent of police, who is about to unleash a long-planned attack against the Canadian government. Gamache’s quiet missing-persons case suddenly becomes a front-page story when the victim is revealed as the last of Canada’s famous Ouellet quintuplets. And then there’s a drowning death at the Champlain Bridge, which Gamache believes is neither an accident nor suicide. Cosham provides Gamache with a variety of spot-on vocal moods. There’s a flat, weary approach when he’s speaking with the uninspired and disrespectful new members of his team. But once on the job—issuing orders or interrogating suspects and witnesses—Cosham shifts to a hard-edged and no-nonsense delivery. Finally, he sounds thoughtful and relaxed when conversing with his family and the friends he’s made in the village of Three Pines, where much of the novel takes place. Cosham manages to distinguish the book’s many characters using only subtle shifts in tone, the one exception being the voice he lends shrill, foul-mouthed poetess Ruth Zardo, whose squawk sounds a bit like something her pet duck might utter. This engrossing, well-produced audio ends with a brief conversation between author and reader. A Minotaur hardcover.