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.

Kicking the Habit

Earlier this year, I made my first acquaintance with Catherine Aird by reading His Burial Too. Although I expressed genuine enthusiasm for the locked-room situation and its resolution (which contains a very good trick at its core), I thought the book suffered from a poor sense of pacing, with a second act that dragged interminably on as the detectives investigated trails that were all-too-obviously dead ends. I had hopes that The Religious Body would be an improvement— the plot sounded like a riot and Aird showed an excellent sense of humour that could make such a story enjoyable. The result was not quite what I expected, though…

The Religious Body opens in the Convent of St. Anselm. One of the nuns, Sister Anne, is nowhere to be found, until somebody stumbles over her body at the foot of the cellar stairs. C. D. Sloan arrives with Constable Crosby in tow to investigate, and he decides that all this just doesn’t add up. Eventually, he decides Sister Anne was murdered, and begins to try finding the killer.

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.)

The Incident of the Pickled Herring

Catherine Aird is an author who intrigues me. Ever since browsing the excellent catalogue of The Rue Morgue Press, I’ve wanted to try her work. The Religious Body sounds like a riot— with a murder taking place in a convent and the nuns being forced to have contact with the outside world. All it sounds like it needs would be an elderly nun detective and a priest, both mystery enthusiasts, sitting down trying to figure everything out. Well, I might get to The Religious Body someday, but I decided instead to start off with His Burial Too.

It is an interesting book at first. It starts with a bizarre opening, as a fellow named Richard Mallory Tindall does not return home, worrying his daughter and the housekeeper. The police send out Inspector Sloan to investigate, against his will— he insists, after all, that it’s not a crime to not show up at home for the night. Sloan, much to his despair, is paired up with Constable Crosby, a fellow who gives you the feeling that the lights are on, but nobody’s home. The opening feels rather pointless, to be frank, but things get really interesting when the man’s car is discovered in the garage. Something must have happened to prevent him from entering his house! But what?