Ponder: Gamache 13,14,15 – Drugs, Blizzard, Flood

My pace of working my way through the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny has, for the most part, been set by the rate at which the books become available at the library. Her most recent, #16, All the Devils Are Here, became available much sooner than I was expecting and before the previous three. My husband, Frank however found a good deal on line for those three and bought them used for me. I raced through #13, #14, and #15 since I wanted to read them in order before digging into the one I'd checked out of the library. Like binge watching a TV series, there are pros and cons. 

The segway from one book to the next is smoother since memory is fresh; the impatience and curiosity are allayed more quickly, having not had to wait as long. But the down side is the books become all muddled together and alas, the enjoyment of savoring each is diluted. Plus, since I did not blog each as I finished, now I am scrambling to figure out what to say. Fortunately I did write my review of All the Devils Are Here ©2020 (#16) soon after I finished it. That post is waiting in the wings to be published right after I’ve caught up reviewing these. My solution for being behind for the trio of books, is to write this one post for all three. And I had to "cheat".

Remember the CliffsNotes study guides reminiscent of high school and college days... those yellow and black bumble-bee striped pamphlets? I do not recall ever using them, not so much out of integrity but more out of fear of being accused of "cheating". Per Wikipedia

Detractors of the study guides claim they let students bypass reading the assigned literature. The company claims to promote the reading of the original work and does not view the study guides as a substitute for that reading.

I have found a great use for an excellent website, www.bookrags.com, which is kind of like an online version of CliffsNotes. It helps me jog my memory on books I have read or perhaps did not understand. It is in no way a substitution for reading the book since it is riddled with spoilers and lacks setting description and character development. In this situation I used BOOKRAGS to help me recall the plot lines of the Louise Penny's novels Glass Houses ©2017, Kingdom of the Blind ©2018, and A Better Man ©2019 and provided the link in the following relevant paragraphs for each book. Notice in the image of the covers I also overlaid a one-word clue near the bottom as to what the main action was.

Glass Houses ©2017 (#13) ★★★★☆

A black robed figure, radiating the fear and dread of a grim reaper, appears at a Halloween party in the Canadian village of Three Pines but stands ominously and wordlessly looming on the village green for days afterward. The spooky form is modeled after a cobrador del franc, a character from Spain who acts as a conscious for people with debts (monetary and moral) they have yet to repay, following the guilty parties and shaming them. Days later a murder is committed in Three Pines. I specially liked this graphic with silhouettes of three pines and a hooded figure from a NY Times review.

A creepy twist in the narrative traces the cobrador back to medieval Spain, when plague victims, lepers and witches were consigned to a remote island to die. Those who survived and managed to return to the mainland silently stalked the people who had banished them and, over the years, became mythic figures. In his dark robes, the cobrador becomes a vivid metaphor for opioids like fentanyl, the “modern-day Black Death” that drug cartels are smuggling across the border through Three Pines and into Vermont.

There are two plot lines in Glass Houses: a murder and a battle to bring down a drug cartel. There are two main settings: one in the Canadian village of Three Pines in the fall/winter where a murder is committed and one in a Montreal courtroom in the heat of summer where the accused killer is on trial. Penny cleverly alerts the reader early on which timeline is being followed by description of the heat or cold and not necessarily the dialogue. Suspense in the trial is sustained wondering if Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache, an honorable staunch supporter of the law, will perjure himself when on the witness stand.

Sitting uncomfortably on the hard chair, under oath, Armand Gamache admitted to himself that while he believed in the law, had spent his career working within the justice system, what he really had to answer to was his conscience. And that was proving to be a pretty harsh judge. [Chapter 1]

As usual Penny inserts humorous or poignant scenes that stick with me. Even though I needed to refresh my mind on the basic facts of the book, these scenes stick with me in some visceral way. After the murder victim is discovered by Gamache's wife Reine-Marie she has blood on her hands.

Armand took Reine-Marie to the powder room, and together they washed the worst of the blood off her hands, his large fingers softly rubbing the now dried blood from her skin.... There was still some blood stuck to her wedding ring. It was difficult not to see the symbolism... This was what he'd brought into their marriage. Blood ran through their lives together. [Chapter 13]

Gamache's forces pretend to be inept in order to lull the drug cartel into complacency so they can be trapped. When a battle ensues in the bistro, three ladies of the village, upon hearing gunfire, rush in to even the numbers.

"Does" Armand have a gun?" asked Clara, her eyes wide and hands trembling but her voice was strong. "Non." Reine-Marie looked around and grabbed the fireplace poker. Myrna and Clara did the same thing. Myrna came away with a hatchet-like thing and Clara was left with a fireplace brush. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath. [Chapter 33]

Glass Houses had high action passages, soft emotions, suspense, humor, struggles with conscience, and of course the reprise of characters I have come to identify as my literary family. True, I did need to refer to http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-glass-houses/ to recall the plot, but even so I rate it four stars.

★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience.

Kingdom of the Blind ©2018 (#14) ★★☆☆☆
A major character from the previous novel is seriously injured and so I was quite anxious to move ahead and see what the outcome for that character was in the sequel. In this book Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache has been placed on suspension due to investigations related to a drug raid he orchestrated where some of the narcotics slipped into Montreal. 

The first of two storylines takes place in Three Pines in which Gamache and Myrna and a new character Benedict are appointed co-executors on the will of a person none of them knows. They meet at an abandoned snow covered dilapidated house in the woods as instructed in a letter from a deceased notary. Strange? Yes. Curious? Yes. Engaging? Not really... not to me any way. But I suppose since he is on suspension Gamache has the time and willingness to pursue his role of co-executor for a multi-million dollar fortune that oddly enough does not seem to exist. Tracking the line of money has some dealing in the financial world, also not endearing to my interests. I found the clues and logic difficult for me to follow. However, a dead body, potentially a victim of murder, found in the house when it collapses entrapping the three coexecutors within the debris, does up my interest level a bit more.

In the second storyline, Amelia, a young female cadet ejected from the Police Academy becomes immersed in the drug world of Montreal downtown. A frantic search ensues in a desperate attempt to locate the drugs and their processing lab before the deadly concoction is loosed on the streets of Montreal. It is these very drugs that had slipped through Gamache's fingers at the American-Canadian border in the engagement with the drug cartel in the previous book, Glass Houses. There is a police raid on the drug lab, a shoot out, and lethal injection of drugs as the key source of page-turning, heart-pounding action. I find this kind of dark, drug-related drama distasteful to me, and the topic soured my opinion of this book.

 
With two storylines that never intertwined, a drug theme I abhor, and the harrowing experiences of a young woman trying to shake an addiction, I uncharacteristically found Kingdom of the Blind an unappealing Louise Penny selection. I was however, encouraged by learning the outcome of a key character I like, whose fate had been left dangling in the previous novel. For a more inclusive plot summary see http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-kingdom-of-the-blind-a-chief-inspector-gamache-novel.  I rate Kingdom of the Blind two stars meaning

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

A Better Man ©2019 (#15) ★★★★☆
A Better Man opens with Armand Gamache's first day back at work, returning from a leave imposed while an investigation into his unconventional actions and decisions as Chief Superintendent took place. He has been demoted to Chief Inspector from his role as Chief Superintendent and must share that role with Jean-Guy Beauvoir, formerly his second in command. Rather than being humiliated by the political intentions to demean him, at the daily morning opening staff meeting, Gamache freely discusses the situation with lower ranked officers who have served under him. Also at that meeting, a young woman, who is known to be in an abusive marriage, is reported missing. Gamache is the officer assigned to look into it. He is actually quite eager and reminiscent to be back in the rank and file of direct crime investigations.

Concurrent to the missing young woman investigation is the threat of several dams in danger of breach due to heavy spring flooding. The newly- appointed, inexperienced Chief Superintendent is not acting quickly nor wisely enough to avert the disaster. Gamache tries to direct a plan to sufficiently divert the water, saving lives and minimizing property damage, while risking accusations of insubordination.  Three Pines is one of the areas in danger of the deluge pouring through their village. During bulldozing efforts to redirect the flood waters nearby, some personal property of the missing woman is uncovered and the case upscales to possible murder. 

A high level of tension is maintained throughout the novel due both to the threat of rising waters and to several cases of people falling into the icy-cold raging torrents or barely being rescued before they do. The body of the missing woman is found floating in the river. At one point in the story, Jean-Guy Beauvoir acts impulsively spurned on by his personal situation and Armand Gamache must physically intervene. The forensic trail followed to detect the story behind the demise of the young woman is creative, unique, and unsuspected. There is a final twist in the determination of whether her death was accidental or intentional.

I especially liked this novel because it featured both the professional and personal lives of the three main detectives, Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Isabelle Lacoste and involves the cast of characters from the Three Pines village. This is important to me in reading the series. One frequently asked question at the Louise Penny Official site is whether it is important to read the Gamache series in order. 

Well, it's not essential...Having said that, there is a strong, and growing, character development arc throughout the books. I think of the books as having two streams - one is the plot - the crime. The other is the personal life of the characters. The first will, for the most part, be contained in a single book. The character development, though, gets deeper and deeper across the series.

A plot summary is available at http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-a-better-man. But to know about the people outside of their work lives, uncover the plot details, try to figure out the investigative clues, feel the vivid action, flip pages quickly in suspense, enjoy the familiarity of a book style... then read the book. I subtracted one star from my rating due to the "limited audience" caveat and rated it four stars. Those not in the readership of Louise Penny fans will not appreciate this book to its fullest potential. I read it not just for the crime but also for the characters.

★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience