Review: The Beautiful Mystery

The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Gamache #8), by Louise Penny (Sphere 2012)

I was just able to squeeze in my seasonal Gamache read during the fall (okay, and in the first few days of December), and it captured my attention like few other books have recently. In book #8, we are taken away from our beloved Three Pines, and our beloved cast of characters for the most part, and are brought to a remote monastery where no one has been in or out (except the residing monks) for centuries. But Gamache and Beauvoir are called in to disrupt that record, as one of the 24 monks has been found murdered in the garden, leaving one of the other 23 as the murderer.

Despite not being set in Three Pines with Clara and Ruth and Olivier and all the others, I found this one to be enthralling. I’m not sure what it was about it — the peaceful location juxtaposed against the violent crime, the deep look into a life that is normally hidden behind closed doors, or the continued strong character development of Armand and Jean Guy (which was excruciating) — but I didn’t want to close the pages of this one. I almost felt compelled to continue right into book #9 after finishing, but I’m going to try to hold off till at least January to give myself some space. Grateful that I’m still not even halfway through this series. So much left to enjoy!