Jumping the Shark

It is with a heavy heart that I write this review—and there is a high risk that it will turn into a rant. I have genuinely enjoyed the work of Canadian mystery novelist Louise Penny in the past, and I really looked forward to her newest book, The Beautiful Mystery. It had an intriguing plot idea, and with an author as skilled as Penny behind the wheel, I thought there was no possible way for the book to fail. I was wrong.

The Beautiful Mystery takes place in the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, a reclusive order of monks who have taken a vow of silence. Ironically, despite their vow of silence, the monks have become famous worldwide for their beautiful singing voices, having released a best-selling CD of Gregorian chants. But then, someone at the monastery murders the world-famous choirmaster, and it is up to Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec to investigate, along with his sidekick Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

Dead Silence

Louise Penny’s Still Life is one of the most frustrating books I’ve read all year long. Damn it all, this book starts off so well!!! But the wheels fall off so abruptly in the final act, and we’re left with the most anticlimactic ending I’ve come across in a long time… probably the worst since Catherine Aird’s The Religious Body back in November of last year!!!

The quiet community of Three Pines is a small, peaceful village in rural Québec… and one morning, the community’s peace is shattered when Jane Neal is discovered dead, killed by an arrow. Was it an accident? Then why isn’t anyone coming forward? And where is the arrow? And for that matter, if it was murder, who could have done it? After all, Jane was well-liked by everyone. It sounds like a job for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache!

The good ol' curling game...

I suspect that Louise Penny has joined the likes of William DeAndrea and Bill Pronzini (and possibly Peter Lovesey) as modern/recent authors who have done an excellent job keeping mysteries alive and breathing. In June, I read her book The Murder Stone a clever book with a good impossible crime which was neatly executed overall. I compared Penny to Agatha Christie, pointing out it was a modern-day country house mystery, complete with an eccentric family ruled by a domineering matriarch. After a very good introduction to the author’s books, I eagerly picked up the second book in her Armand Gamache series: Dead Cold (a.k.a. A Fatal Grace).

Once again, Louise Penny does an excellent job putting the Canadian spirit onto the page. It’s excellently done, this time through the sport of curling. I’m not a curler myself, and I don’t follow the sport (which makes golf look like an extreme sport), although I have great respect for curlers themselves. Louise Penny obviously likes the sport a lot, and through her descriptions, the game seems to come alive. It’s all done very well, and is in many ways part of the plot— descriptions of snow-covered landscapes are lovely, but snowdrifts can complicate the investigation process, no? But she balances everything nicely: the characterization, the Canadiana, and the plot play off each other very well, and it never seems overdone. For instance, a group of people sit down to watch a hockey game. (Hey, it’s Canada!) Canadian’ passion for hockey is often the source of jokes, the scene here feels very authentic, right down to die-hard fans screaming the goalie should be traded when he’s having a rough night.

The Canadian Statue Mystery

It seems that, in recent weeks, a bit of an international flavour has been thrown into the mystery blogs. I’ve reviewed Paul Halter, John has gotten a crack at the Boileau-Narcejac writing team, and TomCat has introduced us to Dutch authors like Libbe van der Wal. (An internet meme like the Alphabet of Crime Fiction could totally be inspired by this.) Then, I was asked the intriguing question of whether I knew of Canadian GAD-school authors. I couldn’t think of any, but John came to the rescue and offered a suggestion: Louise Penny.

It is very difficult to capture the Canadian spirit— although we’re similar to Americans, Canadians are very different in many ways. It’s a pleasant surprise when an author succeeds in writing Canadiana. In a mystery, it’s doubly pleasant: Canadians are sorely underrepresented in mysteries of the GAD school. Too often, the Canadian cousin is just a neighbour of the aforementioned cousin (probably deceased), trying to get a piece of the family fortune. Basically, Canada is too often used as an easy excuse for why Bob has been away or where outlaw Mickey Finn has been hiding out. (Canada is not alone in this club— Australia comes to mind as a country that plays a similar role a little too often.)