by Louise Penny
I looked at a couple reviews of this, the latest Louise Penny book. The descriptions included: "her darkest book" and "difficult to read". I think I have to agree on both counts.
This was a very powerful book, more than just a mystery, I think it ventured into social commentary and discussion of the value of a life and what could justify murder, who can you trust, and can you trust yourself. She said that the book was partially triggered by people suggesting she write a book about the covid pandemic.
The book takes place just after the pandemic and people in Three Pines are rejoicing in being able to socialize again, hug again. Armand Gamache is given a strange assignment. He is supposed to coordinate security for controversial speaker who will be coming to speak at a local university gym. This doesn't seem to be an appropriate job for him and his team. The speaker is travelling with her Assistant who has been a best friend since childhood.
When Gamache does research and finds out that the speaker has a fanatical views and is very popular on social media and amongst fringes of society he gets concerned and tries to get the Chancellor of the University to stop the event. She pleads that universities need to air all opinions and won't cancel. We later find out that the speaker is a fried of hers and that the Chancellor actually booked the hall but under a fake name. The speaker is a statistician, who was hired by the government to write a report. The report is so shocking the government refuses to release it. So the woman takes her message to the Internet and gains a big following. She is proposing that the way for the economy to grow after the pandemic is to eliminate all the vulnerable (handicapped and aged). This strikes a nerve with Gamache and his son-in-law who has a daughter with Downs Syndrome. The son-in-law has been wrestling with his feelings about having a handicapped child.
At the event there is high security, people are searched for weapons. Gamache, because he wants to protect Jean Guy for the message of the speaker and the support she gets from the crowd, orders Jean Guy to stay outside the doors of the venue. But Jean Guy does go inside.
While the speaker is speaking a firecracker goes off. This frightens the crowd. Shortly after gun shots are aimed at the stage. Gamache falls on the speaker to protect her. They discover the shooter is a local man, not known to police, they don't initially know how the gun could have gotten into the building. When Gamache finds out Jean Guy did not follow his instructions he is furious.
As the story goes on various people who are interviewed don't tell the police the truth. For example a local retired academic, who is known as something like the bad saint, does not tell them he was at the event, standing next to the gunman and did nothing to stop him from firing. We later find out that this academic, early in his academic career, was working for a scientist who conducted devastating experiments, bordering on torture on psychiatric patients. This work was funded by the FBI.
An additional character in the story is a young Sudanese woman who is visiting Three Pines. She is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Everyone of course expects her to be saintly because of all her work fighting for refugees, women and children. However, she is very ascerbic.
As the story goes on we learn that the Speakers mother was a victim of these scientific experiments and committed suicide after she came home from the treatments. She left behind the Speaker, her handicapped sister and her husband. A few years later the sister dies, Gamache comes to suspect she was murdered and the father commits suicide. He sends a letter to the Chancellor (who at that time was a close friend) asking her to give the letter to his daughter. He does not admit to killing the daughter.
Gamache tells the Chancellor to take the speaker and her assistant and have them stay at her place for their safety. Instead she brings them to a New Year's Eve Party in Three Pines. The assistant is found murdered, bludgeoned, just after midnight. They are trying to figure out if she was killed on purpose or was mistaken for the speaker.
In the end it turns out that the speaker actually killed her assistant when the assistant confessed she had smothered the woman's sister to get the women freedom. There is a confrontation in which the speaker has a gun on Jean-Paul and he has a gun trained on her. He is tempted to use it on her and she seems to be seeking "suicide by cop". Added to all this conflict we also learn more about the Sudanese woman and the murders she committed to escape capture and save others.
The book is very intense, Gamache and Jean-Paul wrestle with whether they are being truly logical in handling this case or whether their emotions are colouring their judgment. Gamache of course always thinks he is logical so the thought that he might not always be is a test for him.
It isn't just about murder, it is about the right to life, is murder ever justified? when you see something bad happening and you don't act, how we expect "good" people to be saints, and they're not necessarily. It is about lies, truth, loyalty we think we owe to friends, emotion, logic and the insanity of crowds, a commentary of current social media. She threw everything into this story,
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