The Brutal Telling

Another excellent mystery in Penny's Gamache series. Gamache's thoughtful understanding of human emotions, his humility and appetite for knowledge, Lacoste's intuitive and sensitive connection to those being investigated and questioned play counterpoint to Jean Guy Beauvoir's arrogance, condescension controlled by natural smarts, and love of his mentor, Gamache. This wonderful combination creates a rich, gratifying foundation for this series.

Impeccable timing, smart characters with story lines of their own, a strong plot based in history, art, literature, politics and set in Canada's natural wild beauty and you get a winner.

I was surprised Penny chose to take this direction. I wondered if it would/could happen in Three Pines; and I'm show more glad she's shown she is not afraid of going off the beaten path and getting lost in the woods. show less

In any cozy mystery (if the Three Pines Mysteries can be considered cozy), the members of the inner circle of recurring characters don’t commit crimes. Readers who expect this when starting The Brutal Telling have a rude awakening indeed. This story of human cruelty and forgiveness is one of the best in the series, and is the second title in which Penny challenges the unspoken rule of the innocence of recurring characters.

Oh Louise, you're killing me! (no pun intended) As riveting as the rest of her books, but way too close to home.

Masterful suspense, that perfectly illustrates the destructive fallout that a murder investigation leaves behind. This book leaves you wondering, leaves you surprised and suspicious and sad to be in that place. It also leaves you with the most beautiful image of a treasure room: protected, hidden, full of art. Mysteries within mysteries.

**THIS REVIEW IS ONE LONG SPOILER**

Okay. I've told everyone that I read books twice before I write a review, because it's not fair to someone who spends a year just bringing a book to market, plus who knows how long dreaming it up and committing it to paper and lovingly burnishing its prose, simply to wing off some half-baked sentences about it.

So I read this book twice, and thought about it, and examined my responses to it. I was careful to think through my strong reactions to the book.

I can now state, in all fairness, that I loathe Louise Penny from the depths of my soul. Hate her! Wish to see her tied to a stake and burnt as the ensorcelling, enticing Succubus of Fiction that she is!

*pause to put out spontaneously combusted desk show more blotter*

The rational reason: The murderer in this book is clearly identified early on; doubts are cast onto tthe murderer's guilt at the end of the book, but it's too little too late, as we are already eviscerated, devastated, squashed flat like a bug, by the revelation that Olivier...that's right, fearless readers, OLIVIER! as in the bistro's owner and Gabri...poor, poor Gabri!...Gabri's one true love is plain ol', flat-out nasty.

Yeup. Heard me right. OLIVIER is the bad guy. So what if maybe, just maybe, he didn't kill the victim? Big deal! He did some very very very vile stuff, and he did it in full possession of his faculties, and he...I mean, I mean, LOUISE PENNY did...made us love him and care for him like Gabri...poor, darling Gabri, such a pain he is, but such a mensch...does!

*pause to put out spontaneously combusted letter holder*

Okay, okay, I will attempt some restraint out of fear for my home furnishings.

Emily Carr, the Canadian artist whose life and career serve as one of the support rods of this perfidious, sneaky attack on the hearts of loyal fans...I mean, this narrative, was a delightful painter of the stunningly beautiful world of Canada's West. Penny doesn't need to make her more famous in Canada, but I venture to guess that most Murrikins have never heard of her. This is a shame, but not a surprise: How many who aren't serious art buffs have heard of Canada's Group of Seven anyway? So go look at Carr's bio and follow some links to her spectacular artwork: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Carr

Go Louise Penny. Rah.

And if it's possible, Armand Gamache becomes even more lovable in this instalment of the series. It's unnerving, really, how much I believe that he really exists, Three Pines really exists, the whole Pennyverse is actual not virtual. The Chief Inspector is so gentle and patient and loving in his treatment of Gabri. He grieves with him. He explains the facts as he knows them to Gabri, whose denial he fully and completely understands after the ending of The Cruelest Month. Armand Gamache makes the whole agonizing betrayal-fest that is this hot poker of a book worthwhile.

Oh, and Clara's art show is even more satisfying than it would be otherwise because of the way it all falls into place. That's all I can say. Plus Peter's come-uppance! After A Rule Against Murder, I actively dislike Peter Morrow; his complete and utter vitiation in this book felt *so* good. But, honestly, I don't expect that it'll last...Penny's proven she's a cruel and unusual punishment specialist, you just wait...she has some horrid shock awaiting us about Peter....

Recommended, Goddammit, because it's too integral to the series not to read. But it ticks me off to recommend it. Really, truly, it does. show less

Not often I'll say that about a detective novel, but Louise Penny has a magic pen and it feels like I'm reading a very literary novel when I read one of her books. And this book is more than ever like that. With all the references to art, sculpture, first editions and other expensive antiquities, it is also a lesson in fine art and literature. I particularly enjoyed the references to Walden: "I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude two for friendship and three for society". or "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone". And on top of that we have Ruth's poetry which is memorable in itself. In this book Gamache and his crew find themselves in Three Pines again when a dead body that was show more obviously murdered turns up on the floor of the locked bistro that Gabri and Olivier own. There is no id on the body and it takes the Surete crew most of the book to find out who he was. The secrets that the man was keeping are found early on and it only deepens the mystery to Gamache.
By the time they unearth most of the clues, codes and possible motive for the killing, it appears that this killer is someone close to home. The net gets tighter and tighter around this particularly heartless killer, and the final resolution tears the village into pieces. Peaceful, bucolic Three Pines has much darkness behind some of the village doors. This is a wonderful book, and the best I've read so far in this series. I am reading them in order and I think this was number 6. I think I'll be binge reading the rest. show less

We first meet Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Surete du Quebec, when he is called in to investigate the death of an elderly man found on the floor of Olivier Brule's bistro. Since the town of Three Pines does not have its own police force, nor does it have sidewalks, traffic lights or even a mayor, everyone in town knows each other but no one seems to know the dead man. Or at least not that they will admit.

The mystery deepens when the coroner announces the man was not killed on site but elsewhere and moved to the bistro. Who would do such a thing? And why? Does someone have it in for Olivier? The citizens of Three Pines begin to question could it be one of them. When a man long thought dead shows up in town, Gamache show more and the investigative team wonder if this is just coincidence or did he have something to do with the crime. Narrowing down the motive proves to be the hardest part of the investigation.

I became very fond of Inspector Gamache as he methodically searched into the past lives of the suspects looking for the murder motive. After all, his theory is that to catch a killer you don't move forward but backwards into the past. Characters are revealed layer by layer where nothing is as it seems on the surface and the reader is always learning another facet of these fascinating people who call Three Pines home. Even the victim is not what he appears to be at first glance.

Trying to solve this mystery is like entering a maze; you think you are going in the right direction until you hit a dead end and have to go in another direction and start all over again. Penny does a superb job of leading the reader down the garden path only to find it is the wrong path.

Penny deftly creates a vivid atmosphere that is almost dark and brooding, like the forest that surrounds Three Pines. It was very easy for me to get a vivid mental picture of the characters and places. The detailed descriptions are fantastic.I particularly liked her description of something as simple as the fire in the fireplace:

" it was not the roaring flames of a bitter winter fire, but a soft almost liquid flame of early autumn."

This is not a quick read thriller novel, but a complex character driven mystery that is more slowly developed and should be savored by the reader. Combine wonderful writing with an intriguing mystery and this book is a winner. I will have to say though that about one third of the way in, the story seemed to bog down a tad but in no time at all it picked right up again.

Hubby also read and enjoyed the book very much. Although The Brutal Telling is the fifth book in the Inspector Gamache, it reads like a stand alone novel. This was our first time reading Louis Penny but it definitely will not be the last for us. show less

The Brutal Telling - Penny
4 stars

Say it ain’t so. I definitely didn’t like the ending of this one. Fortunately, I accidentally read one book out of order. I don’t know how it happens, but I do know that there’s been a big mistake.

Whenever I read a book in this series, I wish I could take a vacation in Three Pines. On second thought, maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. I do like all of the characters who live there, but when I think about it there isn't one of them who doesn’t have a messy backstory and a complicated personal life. And then there’s the unusually high body count for such a small village. I could easily end up as a corpse in the next book if I were to visit.

It was a good mystery, even if I was upset show more with the ending. The messy private lives of the recurring characters doesn’t detract from the ongoing investigation, but it does give me incentive to keep reading the next book in the series. With every book Louise Penny sends me to google to track down recipes, photographs or quotations. This book had me adding Margaret Atwood’s poetry to my TBR, along with a rereading of Walden. show less