Ponder: The Brutal Telling

As I work my way through the Chief Inspector Gamache murder mystery series of Louise Penny I am repeatedly aware that it is not plot alone that keeps me coming back. I love the characters in the quaint village of Three Pines in Canada and, since this is her fifth book I have read, I am well acquainted with them as old friends. Therefore, it comes as a shock when one of them is a suspect in the murder investigation in her novel The Brutal Telling ©2009. An author rarely writes a character out of a book unless there is to be an end or drastic change to the series. Will this personable, well-known character be doomed and gone forever? No! Can't be...! But maybe...? 

I am reminded of a tongue-in-cheek exchange in the 1999 Galaxy Quest movie with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, illustrating a supportive counterpart to this character assumption. In the first 30 seconds of a YouTube excerpt, a small party of the crew is sent off on an exploratory trip to an uncharted planet and one of the team members laments that he is doomed.

You're not gonna die on the planet, Guy.

I'm not? Then what's my last name?

Uh... um, um, ... I dunno.

Nobody knows. You know why? Because

my character is not important enough for a last name.

Because I'm gonna die.

Five minutes in.

Guy, you have a last name.

Do I? Do I? For all you know I'm just Crewman No. 6!

My radar has been triggered. Why detail a character and build up a rapport with him only to write him out as guilty. No way! But... but... the evidence... surely points to... This is a suspense building option that would not have been available to the author had she not written four previous books in the series.

There is another suspense option built into the book with the cover. Shown on the left is the cover in Greece and shown on the right is the cover in Canada.

 

An article discussing the publication of The Brutal telling in Greece states:

Off to Greece this week, with the cover of The Brutal Telling as envisioned by our Greek colleagues. There’s clearly a stark difference between the two cover treatments: while we chose to emphasize the fall season in our jacket approach, they focus on traditional mystery elements. With the silhouette of a raven, their cover puts the reader in the mind of Edgar Allen Poe, and immediately suggests something sinister is afoot. In contrast, the US jacket focuses on the vibrant fall foliage of Canada, with only the darkness at the edges to symbolize danger. Both jackets, however, speak to the untamed landscape that Chief Inspector Gamache must navigate to solve the crime

A comment in that article goes on to say that

"[Covers] are like a sound track. You need them but you may not really notice them!"

To me this is further evidence that it is unfortunate that some electronic books do not have covers since they are not needed for sales. What a missed opportunity to lead the reader where the author wants him led. 

Along with characters and suspense, I am bemused with the embedded knowledge in Louise Penny's books. There is a subtle example as early as the second page of the first chapter:

The dark was punctuated by flickering candles throwing fantastic, grotesque shadows. Night seemed to have seeped through the cracks in the logs and settled in the cabin, curled in corners and under the bed. Many native tribes believed evil lived in corners, which was why their traditional homes were rounded. Unlike the square homes the government had given them.

Some of the descriptive language is whimsical. In the second chapter:

In the kitchen Gamache's German shepherd, Henri, sat up in his bed and cocked his head. He had huge oversize ears which made Gamache think he wasn't purebred but a cross between a shepherd and a satellite dish.

The third chapter keeps amusing me with the philosophical banter:

In Beauvoir's experience Darwin was way wrong. The fittest didn't survive. They were killed by the idiocy of their neighbors, who continued to bumble along, oblivious.

But I have not yet told you what the book is about, have I? The facts alone can be gained from Louise Penny's official website where she divulges the first chapter of each of her books in its entirety so it is easy to get roped in.  Here is an image of the back cover tease from The Brutal Telling and a link to the first chapter which definitely develops a sinister mood.

 

An amusing anecdote is my learning of a new vocabulary word – dogsbody.

Never having been exposed to it before, the very next night I heard the word on the 2008 television series Merlin. A happy circumstance of being homebound due to Covid is the discovery on Netflix of this delightful British fantasy based loosely on the Arthurian legends with Arthur and Merlin as teenage boys.

Usually in my posts, I discuss the reason behind the title; but the correlation is explained well in the body of the book, not just in a fleeting phrase, so I will leave relaying its relevance to Louise Penny's inspiration and expertise. For more insight refer to an annoted link about The  Brutal Telling. 

There is a scene where Gamache's adult daughter gets in a screaming match with Beauvoir, Gamache's second in command because they do not see eye to eye. A glimpse into family dynamics adds a bit of zest to a novel already brimming with plot, characters, ambience, suspense, language, and a variety of settings. I rate it five stars ★★★★★ which translates in my scale to "Great! Read it!". I did not even subtract one star for lack of character familiarity. Louise Penny has fifteen books so I am a third of the way there and plan to go the distance.