Louise Penny has
written nine books in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, and How the Light Gets In is her latest,
written in 2013. This is the first time she has been reviewed in Men Reading
Books, but it won’t be the last. I was so taken by the quality of Penny’s
writing, as well as her character and plot development, that I’ll be right back
to her soon. I’ve already downloaded the first book in this series, Still Live, and I plan to read them in
sequence. If the next book is as good as How
the Light Gets In, Ms. Penny will immediately move into my “power rotation”
of authors. From my quick Google research, it is clear that this author is well
known, very successful, and has won many awards. Thanks to Marilyn Canepa for
introducing me to Louise Penny.
The protagonist is
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, the police force for
the province. There are two very interesting plot lines, one having to do with
the death of a secretive woman, the friend of one of the Inspector’s friends
who lives in Three Pines, an idyllic village just outside of Montreal. The
second plot has to do with the rapid deterioration of Gamache’s department. His
personally trained and successful investigators have nearly all been
transferred out of the department and replaced by rookies who are obviously
loyal to the Inspector’s boss, the corrupt Chief Superintendent Francoeur. To
Gamache, the most worrisome defection came by Jean-Guy Beauvoir, the man who
was being groomed to take over his position and his former son-in-law.
In the course of
the book, Penny introduced the reader to each of the characters in Tree Pines,
and the many characters in the Sûreté. Take my word
for the fact that the characters come alive with depth and their interaction
with one another is believable, and sometimes comical. Penny’s sense of humor
is unmistakable in the dialogue. But, beyond the sometimes comedic interaction
of the characters, Penny also provides depth to the experience of the
characters. For example, as her lead character struggles to learn about the
corruption in his department, she writes, “Armand Gamache had always held
unfashionable beliefs. He believed that light would banish the shadows. That
kindness was more powerful than cruelty, and that goodness existed, even in the
most desperate places. He believed that evil had its limits. But looking at the
young men and women starting at him now, who’d seen something terrible about to
happen and had done nothing, Chief Inspector Gamache wondered if he could have
been wrong all this time. Maybe the darkness sometimes won. Maybe evil had no
limits.”
This book gets
my ultimate 5-star A+ recommendation. If you like crime novels, read this one
next.
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