Ponder: The Nature of the Beast

The Nature of the Beast © 2015, Louise Penny's eleventh book in the Inspector Armand Gamache series, returns to her regular formula with a death near the beginning of the book. However, it is not immediately obvious if this death is accidental or an intentional murder. This death is especially sad and potentially distasteful since it involves a nine year old boy. He is an energetic, likable boy, prone to exaggeration and crying wolf due to his vivid imagination. How many enemies can a child accrue in his short life and what motive could there be to kill him... exasperation maybe, but murder? I was rapidly drawn into this story.

The majority of the action in this novel happens in Three Pines or close environs. As reality is separated from hyperbolical tale-telling, the story becomes less engaging for me. A parallel plot line involves historic development of weapons of mass destruction. It is based on a fact that I looked up in Wikipedia, something called Project Babylon, the development of a Supergun, involving Saddam Hussein. This book educated me but did not entertain me, aspects I pursue in my pleasure reading. A Supergun sequestered in the forests outside the peaceful quaint village of Three Pines is difficult to accept. Even Inspector Gamache is incredulous. As relayed in Chapter 16:

As the plot plods on, involving secret service agents, ballistic experts, and an imprisoned psychotic serial killer, I became less engaged. I think I would have preferred to read a discourse on Superman or even Superglue. Some mechanical transformer type aspects of the triggering mechanism of the Supergun, along with the efforts made to disguise it, did spark my interest; but my focus was preferentially pointed at resolving the circumstances of that nine year old boy to whom I had become attached at the very beginning. Similar to my discussion of Penny's sixth novel Bury Your Dead (my post for 2/24/21) my interest levels in each of the concurrent plot lines of this eleventh book were unequal. 

As usual the back story of the core characters of Armand, Jean-Guy, Reine Marie and the villagers encouraged me to read on. But this was not one of my favorite Louise Penny novels. I had given books six through nine in the Gamache series five stars; I had given four stars to book ten which I most recently completed. I give The Nature of the Beast my lowest rating yet of her books. I will not be deterred from reading her future ones however, even though I rate The Nature of the Beast only

★★☆☆☆ Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it