A Trick of the Light: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel [Format Kindle]

Clara Morrow, at age 50, is far beyond the age when most artists are discovered. Yet, on the evening this novel opens, she is about to enter the prestigious Musée d'Art Contemporain in Montreal for a gala solo show of her work. Clara's nerves nearly get the best of her, but she gets through the experience and is soon able to return to her idyllic Eastern Townships home of Three Pines for a celebratory party with her Three Pines friends, and artists, gallery owners and artists' agents from Montreal.

In the "friends" category are Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Québec Sureté and his second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Gamache and Beavoir have become acquainted with Three Pines and its quirky residents during their investigations of several prior murders. (Penny amusingly acknowledges the incongruity of Three Pines being simultaneously a place of art, friendship and warm hospitality, and a locale with a frighteningly high murder rate, by having bookseller Myrna describe Three Pines as "a shelter[, t]hough, clearly, not a no-kill shelter.")

The celebratory mood of Clara's Three Pines party doesn't last. Early the next morning, it is brought to an abrupt end by the discovery of the murdered corpse of a woman in Clara's garden. The woman is identified as Lillian Dyson, Clara's childhood friend who cruelly betrayed her while they were in art college. Clara claims she hadn't seen or heard from Lillian in over 20 years.

Looking at means and opportunity leaves Gamache and Beauvoir with a wide field of suspects. They must focus on motive, which reveals a huge gap between the type of person Lillian is widely reported to have been 20 years earlier and how she is seen contemporarily by her new circle of acquaintance. Gamache asks, over and over: "can people change?"

The search for Lillian's true identity is the key to the mystery, because only through understanding her nature can the investigators learn how she inspired murderous hatred and in whom. In the course of the investigation, Gamache and Beauvoir also confront the horrors they still live with as survivors of a deadly attack on their team the year before. The experience has affected Gamache profoundly, but it has not shaken his fundamental belief in people. By contrast, Beauvoir thinks: "The Chief believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you'll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn't. He believed that if you sift through good, you'll find evil. Without borders, without brakes, without limit." Though Beauvoir's name can be translated, literally, to mean "beautiful view," his actual view of people has become increasingly dark and embittered.

Clara's new-found success and Lillian's murder also bring to a boil the problems of envy and lack of understanding that have plagued her marriage for several years. In fact, envy is one of the deadly sins that is a persistent theme in this book, as greed was a theme in Penny's prior book, A Brutal Telling. This is what Penny does best. Her mysteries are not about forensics, timetables, alibis or violent action. They are about the human heart and spirit; about envy, resentment and fear eating away at people, threatening friendships, marriages, partnerships and even lives. But they are also about love, forgiveness and redemption offering hope for change and a forging of new, stronger bonds.

In A Trick of the Light, we see Louise Penny at the height of her powers. She is a master of characterization; a genius at creating a world that we enter into and fully live in, and want to return to. This is the finest book I've read this year and I have no doubt it will deservedly win many awards. Highly recommended.

In this story about art, artists, love, hate, addiction, redemption and, yes, murder, readers will visit the beautiful and perhaps magical village of Three Pines, Quebec,a place that isn't on any maps and "...could only be found if you were lost." The plot is intricate and follows all the rules of mystery writing, with red herrings and false denouments, and would make a satisfactory read without any gourmet touches.

Yet, as always, Penny gives us characters that are so real and nuanced that, frankly, you want to go and, if not live with them, at least spend a few weeks of quality time. Calling them "real," is perhaps a disservice, because the central characters, especially Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of Sûreté du Québec, are in many ways the people we wish we could be. They are wise and kind and generous and damaged and flawed and trying their very best. They love and are loved, and have good friends with whom they share wine and simple meals (food is taken very seriously in these books!). The mental landscape of the characters is revealed through writing of such elegant and resonant clarity that the advancement of the story becomes synonymous with the development of a deep personal relationship with the characters. This story revolves around the first solo art show of 50-year-old but 'newly discovered' portrait artist and Twin Pines resident Clara Morrow, at the prestigious Musée d'Art Contemporain in Montreal. In the book, Clara's portraits are described by those who view them: at first, they see unremarkable-looking individuals that, upon closer consideration, are found to have depths of emotion and beauty of spirit that affect the viewer strongly, often with great joy. Many of the books I've read are peopled with "unremarkable individuals" and the things that happen to them and those books are often diverting and entertaining and even moving. However, what Clara has done in her paintings, Penny does with her words -- this book is truly a masterpiece.

With a series that started seven books ago in which the first book was brilliant, how could one expect an author to provide an even better book each time out of the gate? Yet that is what Louise Penny has done. I simply cannot fathom the possibility that someone might read this book and not immediately wish to read the previous six, and so I would encourage you to just start at the beginning with "Still Life."

I'm prepared for the "unhelpful" votes.

Because as much as I like Louise Penny, I wish I liked her more. There's no question that she's a superb writer, with a keen understanding of the human heart and mind; her dialogue is, for the most part, very good; and her ability to create distinct, idiosyncratic characters is unmatched. But for me, the mechanics of a mystery are paramount, and in "A Trick of the Light," I feel that Penny falls short. Simply put, she jumps through some mighty big hoops to ensure that all of her suspects remain -- or return -- to the cosy town of Three Pines after the murder takes place. Characters hang out for no good (or believable) reason (even those who can't stand one another) or make the drive to and from Montreal arbitrarily. They even assemble, most improbably, at a climactic dinner party so that Penny's detective can actually announce, more or less, "The killer is in this very room." As psychologically astute as Penny can be, the nuts and bolts of plot seem to elude her.

One of the problems, I think, is the very narrow focus Penny has created for herself. Yes, the denizens of Three Pines are a colorful bunch, but ensuring that each of her mysteries (but one) somehow takes place there, creates logistical problems that strain credulity. Even Miss Marple traveled beyond the boundaries of St. Mary Mead. I think Penny would get more bang from her buck if the supporting characters surrounding Inspector Gamache changed with each book. This worked for Conan Doyle, Christie, James, Rendell -- the list is endless. I'd hate to see happen to Penny what happened to Martha Grimes, whose Richard Jury series became repetitive and precious precisely, I think, because her story telling was held hostage by characters who wore out their welcome. To me the most successful element of "A Trick of the Light" is Penny's continued exploration of post-traumatic stress, as experienced by her police officers. This is ultimately far more involving than the marital woes of her middle-aged artists or the strained comic relief provided by Ruth, Myrna, Olivier and Gabri. "Numb nuts" is a punch line we only need to hear once, not numerous times.

So let the "unhelpful" votes commence. I will continue to read Penny for her literate prose and astute observances of human nature; but I'll do so in the hope that her plotting gets tighter and less convoluted.