“A Fatal Grace” - Louise Penny

(Gamache book 2)

🌲 First, I have to thank the booksta friend who cautioned me to read the Gamache books in order, even if that meant long wait times at the library. Penny’s characters build upon the first book, and the main denizens of Three Pines are back (Clara, Peter, Myrna, Gabri, Olivier). Also, elements from book 1 like the Arnot mystery and the murder from the first novel, are invoked in this book. This is one series that must be read in order.

🌲 For its residents and visitors who seem to become residents, Three Pines is something of an haven; it’s completely missing on maps, yet it’s only a short drive from Montreal. I would love to sit by the fire at Myra’s amazing bookshop. Three Pines is the sweetest, most picturesque …. murderous village. It reminds me of St. Mary Mead.

🌲 One note: the method of the murder is diabolical, and requires a bit of suspension of disbelief; particularly when you discover the identity of the killer. I will also say, more so than in book 1, you see it coming a step ahead of Gamache. 

🌲 A couple of lines gave me pause, but I think in the context, that Penny deliberate chose such language to demonstrate Beauvoir’s close mindedness and obtuse nature.

“The poster showed an emaciated Indian man in a diaper standing by a stone wall gripping a long cane and smiling. He looked like Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, but then all elderly Indians did to Beauvoir.” Yikes. Beauvoir is the Quebecois equivalent of the American bro. The language is telling; it’s quite the opposite of what we’d expect from Gamache. Penny tells us a great deal about Gamache from his word choice. He has a remarkable facility with words - from Emerson to Shakespeare, Gandhi to the Bible.

🌲 Also, they contribute to a plot point, and Penny has described the type so well that I found myself cringing: the white woman, craving something spiritual, finding herself in an Indian ashram, and coopting everything in sight. Suddenly, she’s tossing around namastes. That’s Mother Bea. And CC is similar, but with the glint of turning the cultural appropriation into cold, hard profit. CC is that nitwit who confuses Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindu, and Buddhist philosophies, claiming to have discovered them, and repackages them under her own branding to sell to what she hopes is a credulous Western public.

🌲 My love for Gamache expanded even from the first novel. He is the first person shown being kind and compassionate to Crie. In fact, he may have been one of few to do so in her sad life. On the other end of the spectrum, is Yvette Nichol. She is vile. I kept asking myself “what is her problem?!”. It was vexing. She sweeps into Three Pines like an evil talisman. Her presence exudes a sense of foreboding for Gamache professionally and personally.

🌲 And Nichol brings us to the Arnot case. Was it a mistake, or an even rarer failure on Gamache’s part? I wracked my brain for any lingering data from the first novel (darn the months long waitlist), but I am pretty sure Penny did not elaborate much there either. You just have to trust that the details will emerge eventually.