Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A bit of a bummer after the high of #9.

The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #10) by Louise Penny

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Actually, I’ve slept on it, and this book makes me angry. My initial review was a little wishy-washy, because for 95% of this book, the writing is like an experimental offshoot of the normal series. There is no crime to solve; Gamache is retired. Instead, Peter has failed to come home on time after his and Clara’s separation, and Clara wants to find him, so Gamache, Beauvoir, and Myrna accompany her on an investigation road trip to basically follow in his footsteps. Only, pretty much […]

The culmination of nine books of story.

How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #9) by Louise Penny

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This is the closest I have ever been to giving one of these books five stars. I think I might have even done it if I’d been able to read the book faster, but since I was stuck with audio CD’s from my library, which I could only listen to in my car, my time with the story stretched out and I was able to think about it more rationally than I would have if were sitting on my couch frantically turning pages to find […]

Beauvoir is going to make me lose all of my hair.

The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #8) by Louise Penny

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This was an odd one for sure, but I liked it. And kind of hated it. This is the second of the books to take place mostly absent from Three Pines, this time in a cloistered monastery, that until the murder, had a secret location known only to a few. The monks at Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups belong to a sect formerly believed lost or gone, and their vocation is music. They have recently become world-renowned (and paid for much needed repairs to the abbey) due to a […]

“He knew time could heal. But it could also do more damage. A forest fire, spread over time, would consume everything.”

A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #7) by Louise Penny

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Clara Morrow has finally been discovered as an artist at the age of fifty. She has her own solo show in a prestigious Montreal art museum, and to celebrate, her friends are throwing her a party in their small village of Three Pines. Everything is going smashingly, until a dead body is discovered in her garden, and it turns out to be her old childhood friend, Lillian, with whom she had a bitter parting as an adult. With yet another dead body in close proximity […]

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don’t know.”

Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #6) by Louise Penny

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I’m officially hooked on this series. With the exception of books two and three, which I thought were dips in quality, this series just keeps getting better. Part of my enjoyment comes from this being essentially now a serialized story. The first four you could pick up out of order and still get everything out of them that Penny wanted you to. But this one almost entirely depends, narratively and emotionally, on the previous five books, but mostly the fifth. Spoilers for previous books to […]

“It was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you.” #CBRBingo

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This was my favorite of these books so far, by quite a large margin. I would say it probably even surpasses the first book for me, mostly because there was no Agent Yvette Nichol here to muck things up (though she has gotten much better since that first book). There was just something about the central mystery here that really appealed to me. This is book five in the Inspector Gamache series, and he continues to be a very calm, steady presence for Penny to […]



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