I have loved this series for a long time but, after a while, juggling the same cast of characters in a small town just creates implausible situations. Will only be checking future books out- not buying any more. ( )

A World of Curiosities - Penny
Audio performance by R. Bathurst
5 stars

I’m not a fan of suspense thrillers. I dislike putting that kind of contrived tension into my life. There are only two authors who currently lure me to that dark side; J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith and Louise Penny. Neither of these women write cozy mysteries. Their books keep me up at night. And, I’m always waiting anxiously for the next book in the series.

This book was very dark. There should be trigger warnings attached. The plot includes horrific child abuse, two psychopathic killers and a mass shooting. I think I was a bit angry with the author for putting me through so much trauma, even though I was sure it was a 5 star book as soon as I finished it. I needed time to recover. Maybe the book should be marketed with a bunch of sage and sweetgrass for smudging. That ritual, in the final chapter, was as much a comfort to me as it was the characters.

I was impressed with the intricate plotting of this book. Penny’s skilled use of backflash ties Beauvoir and Gamache’s first horrific case to the current day murder investigation. Reaching further back, Penny uses an actual 1989 mass shooting as a pivotal experience for a young Armand Gamache. Again, repercussions of that event are tied to the current day mystery. The discovery of a hidden room in an historic Three Pines building reveals a 17th century grimoire and a bastardized copy of a famous painting. How does she tie all of these elements together so seamlessly? And, every additional detail serves to ratchet up the tension.

Penny’s author's notes (in the text, not included in the audio) are worth reading. She identifies forgiveness as a major theme of this book. True, as far as I can remember, the struggle to forgive permeates all of the books in this series. This book also takes a familiar feminist viewpoint and isn’t shy about taking a stand on gun control. ( )

Serial killer, sicko; way too messy of a plotline; disappointing for a good writer ( )

Unbelievable, convoluted, intriguing but fun. Inspector Gamache is affable company as he wades into the dark reaches of Three Pine society. ( )

(2022) Every book in the series is a masterpiece. This one involves a mysterious painting discovered in a bricked in attic room that holds many questions. It all leads to a especially monstrous serial killer that Gamache has helped put away, supposedly forever. But due to incompetence and bribery that killer has escaped prison and now is trying to exact revenge on Gamache and his family. This killer has assumed the identity of a local cleric whose wife has apparently died of cancer and Gamache unknowningly has befriended in his apparent grief. Turns out the wifes death is part of the murderers ploy to trap Gamache in the climatic scene. Good news, the killer is killed. KIRKUS: Welcome to Three Pines, the idyllic-seeming Canadian capital of murder.At the heart of Penny's series of mysteries set in the tiny Quebec town of Three Pines is the relationship between Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the empathetic and capable head of homicide for the S?ret? du Qu?bec, and his headstrong second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, now also his son-in-law. Gamache has a talent for finding officers who've been languishing in their previous jobs and turning them into trusted allies, and Penny has frequently mentioned the way Beauvoir had been ?banished to the basement? in an out-of-the-way bureau and that there was something ?lean and feral�something dangerous? about him before Gamache swooped in and brought him to the homicide squad. Now, in her 18th installment, Penny flashes back to the case that brought the two men together. A woman named Clotilde Arsenault has been found dead in a remote lake, and Gamache shows up at the local detachment to investigate the case himself. Clotilde had two children, 13-year-old Fiona and Sam, 10, and it turns out she had been prostituting them. In the book's present-day strand, Fiona is graduating from college after having served time in prison for killing her mother; Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, have supported her, almost folding her into their own family, but they've never trusted Sam, who will also be at the graduation ceremony. This chapter in Penny's chronicle of Three Pines contains all the elements that she sometimes divides up between different books: There's a cozy-feeling present-day mystery concerning a hidden room Fiona discovers by looking at the roofline of Myrna's bookstore, and the strange painting found inside; the harrowing story of how Gamache and Beauvoir cracked the case of Clotilde's murder; and a story of corruption within the institutions that are supposed to be protecting us. The plotting is complex and the characters as vivid as ever, but the opportunity to watch Gamache and Beauvoir's relationship develop is what makes this book one of Penny's best.Penny will have you turning the pages as fast as you can to see how she'll manage to tie everything together.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022ISBN: 978-1-2501-4529-1Page Count: 400Publisher: Minotaur