The Hangman (2010)

My blog post about this book is at this link. ( )

In this short story Inspector Gamache is summon to the area of Three Pines because a body has been found hanging in the woods, an apparent suicide. But Gamache thinks otherwise. No identification on the body doesn't stop the police, his effects have been found in at the nearby B&B.

Investigation into the victim's history reveals motive as well as direction to the killer.

A fascinating short story that held all the same ingredients of Penny's full-length novels but not all the complexities. ( )

Novella ( )

A good entertaining short story. There's not much character development for either the recurring characters or the story specific ones, but that's to be expected in a short story. The story is well-plotted. ( )

Louise Penny's "The Hangman" is a short story/novella that was published between the 6th & 7th Chief Inspector Armand Gamache full-length novels "Bury Your Dead" and "A Trick of the Light". It is part of a series called "Good Reads" where about a dozen Canadian authors have provided a short work for adult literacy promotion.

The plot of "The Hangman" involves an apparent suicide by a visitor to Three Pines Village who is there under the assumed name of Arthur Ellis. Some might recognize that name from the Arthur Ellis Awards presented by the Crime Writers of Canada. Louise Penny herself won it for Best First Novel in 2007 for "Still Life" and for Best Crime Novel in 2011 for "Bury Your Dead". The likely lesser known bit of Canadian trivia revealed in "The Hangman" is that the Arthur Ellis Awards aren't named after an early Canadian crime writer but are instead named for the pseudonym used by Canada's Chief Executioner from 1912-1935 and by some others afterwards. This forms a major clue in the solving of the mystery.

"The Hangman" is a stand-alone work that doesn't require any background knowledge about Chief Inspector Gamache and his assistant Inspector Beauvoir or the characters in Three Pines Village where the short murder mystery takes place. The story is kept very straightforward without the several plot-lines and flashbacks that have been otherwise used by author Penny. The language is also at an easy reading level and the font size is also close to Large Print Size. There are still enough red-herrings and investigative discoveries to be made for this to be an enjoyable read for Louise Penny and Chief Inspector Gamache fans. ( )