Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Freeze Frame

Still Life (Armand Gamache #1) by Louise Penny

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Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called out to the town of Three Pines, where artist and beloved local icon Jane Neal has been found dead. At first this appears to be a hunting accident; Neal has been shot with an arrow in the middle of the woods. But all is not what it appears, and soon Gamache is trying to decipher who, in this tight-knit and small community could’ve killed Neal. I’m not much of a fan of the whole cozy genre, and I didn’t […]

Murder goes on vacation

The Murder Stone by Louise Penny

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Armand Gamache, the dapper detective from la belle province’s Surety de Quebec, is back in this fourth installment in Louise Penny’s series. This time Gamache is not in Three Pines, the idyllic but murder-y town in Quebec’s eastern townships, but Manoir Bellechasse, a lakeside hotel resort the next valley over. It is the height of summer and Armand and his wife, Reine-Marie, are celebrating their anniversary the same way they do every year, at the Manoir. The resort’s other guests are the Finneys, a snooty […]

Bring Out Yer Dead!

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

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This was cruising to a 4-star rating and probably the title of my favorite Gamache read. And instead, it lands at 3. Why? A variety of reasons. I liked that most of the action, specifically Gamache’s action, took place outside of Three Pines. I don’t find Three Pines as fascinating as the writer does. Ideally, this series would just take Gamache to different parts of Quebec. Such is life. I also liked that Penny gave Jean-Guy some run. Occasionally, she writes him as too much […]

I liked this one

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

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Series: The Inspector Gamache books. I read and reviewed Book 1 in 2016 and since then have read a couple a year. I read Book 11 in August of 2020 and didn’t really like it. I’ve been really back and forth on these books–I’ve loved some and barely been able to finish others. What I remembered most about this series prior to reading this book: I remember very few of the mysteries and even less of the b-plots–the ones that revolved around the corruption within […]

“There is a pay phone by a truck stop near the town of Leonard, Arizona. Sometimes at night it starts to ring.”

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

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I was first drawn into Emily St. John Mandel’s world back in 2015, when Station Eleven caught my eye after popping up in a few “best of” lists.  It became an immediate favorite, and I know that love is shared here within our CBR community! I’ve read it twice since first picking it up, most recently in March, right as the world started to dip further and further into pandemic horror. I wrote in a previous review that I would not have picked up The Glass Hotel […]

Is there anyone NOT reading this series? If so, what is the matter with you??

A Better Man by Louise Penny

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Seriously though, there are enough Cannonballers who are on the Inspector Gamache train, that this should just be required reading. Amirite? [Review is semi-spoilery, depending on where you are in the series] Due to his questionable (yet, effective) methods of cracking a drug ring in the last book, Inspector Gamache found himself stripped of his title as head of the Quebec police department. This book sees him accepting a demotion and returning to his previous role as head of homicide. It’s a decision that is […]



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