Ten years ago Gamache flew hours northeast from Montreal. A woman was dead in a lake. On arrival Gamache met Guy Beauvoir, an insolent young Surete du Quebec officer with a “boulder” on his shoulder.
Gamache takes the responsibility to tell Clothilde Arsenault’s children, 13 year old Fiona, and 10 year old Sam of their mother’s death by murder. It is a harrowing scene made even more intense by Gamache’s recollection of the death of his parents at 9 years of age.
After their death Gamache had not wanted anything around him to be changed until his grandmother told him:
“They’re here.” Zora touched his head. “And here.” She touched his heart. Then laid her thin hand over her own heart. A house can change. Things get lost or broken. But the love you keep inside you is safe, forever. They’re safe, inside you.”
Gamache is abruptly shaken to his core when he discovers what their mother had done to Fiona and Sam.
And I was swept into the story.
In the present day the village celebrates the graduation from the Polytechnique of two women engineers, Fiona and Harriet (niece of bookshop owner Myrna).
Sam comes to Three Pines for the celebration and Gamache is deeply unsettled. He is not often in such a state of mind.
A day later the residents are shaken when Myrna says that she and Billy Williams are thinking about moving from Three Pines. Clara, desperate to keep them, offers to have them live in her house and she will move to the loft in the bookstore. A series has gripped me when I felt a pang of regret at Myrna’s statement. In real life we have to deal with friends and relatives moving. I do not want it to happen in a favoured fictional village.
There is a secret to the bookstore that has been hidden for 160 years. There is a hidden room. The room was bricked and plastered over in the 19th Century. It is a locked room mystery as to its creation and that inside are several items and a copy of The Paston Treasure painting to which have been added images that range from the 1600’s to our time. A grimoire, a book of spells, from the 17th Century is also found in the room.
The symbolism within the painting is from the minute to the massive. The symbolic power of the spells is intense. The consequences for those who create symbols and invoke spells has its own symbolism.
As the room, painting and book are examined murder is discovered and a wicked devious plot unfolds. There is mystery within mystery within mystery.
Penny has used history from 100 to 350 years ago to great effect in the series. In A World of Curiosities she once again links events long past with Three Pines.
The book has several references that pick up or refer to events in earlier books or in Penny’s life. An example involves holding hands at death as Penny held Michael’s hand when he died. You need not have read the full series but, for those who have, the references add depth to the book.
Evil and goodness fill the book. They are not addressed as abstract concepts. Penny says the book is about forgiveness. I found it more about trust and revenge. My next post will address “goodness” in the book and real life.
The ending confounded me. It was too much Hollywood but also contained profound moments. I raced through the final 100 pages. I prefer Penny forgoing Hollywood. A World of Curiosities could have been more than a very good book. (Jan. 9/23)
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Penny, Louise – (2005) - Still Life; (2006) - Dead Cold (Tied for 3rd Best fiction of 2006); (2007) - The Cruelest Month; (2009) - The Murder Stone (Tied for 4th Best fiction of 2009); (2010) - The Brutal Telling; (2011) - Bury Your Dead (Best Fiction of 2011); (2011) - A Trick of the Light; (2012) - The Beautiful Mystery (Part I) and The Beautiful Mystery (Part II); (2013) - "P" is for Louise Penny - Movie Producer and Review of the Movie of Still Life; (2013) - How the Light Gets In; (2014) - The Long Way Home; (2014) - The Armand Gamache Series after 10 Mysteries - Part I and Part II; (2015) - The Nature of the Beast (Part I) and The Nature of the Beast (Part II); (2016) - A Great Reckoning - The Academy and Comparisons and The Map; (2016) - Louise Penny and Michael Whitehead Holding Hands; (2017) - Glass Houses - Happiness and Unhappiness and Getting the Law Wrong; (2019) - Kingdom of the Blind and Irreconcilable Dispositions; (2019) - A Better Man; (2020) - All the Devils are Here and Relationship Restaurants in Fiction and Real Life and Reading of the Marais Simultaneously; (2021) - The Madness of Crowds and Responding to Evil and Considering "People"; (2021) - Three Pines - The Amazon Prime Series; (2022) - Season One of Three Pines
In my opinion, Bill, Louise Penny is one of those authors who consistently writes books that draw the reader in. I was especially thinking about your feelings about Myrna possibly leaving Three Pines. You know that characters are very real to you when you care about them that much, I think. It's interesting, too, to get some backstory on Gamache and Beauvoir. I'm glad that, for the most part, you thought this was very good.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. A lot of readers have been drawn into life at Three Pines. A World of Curiosities is currently on the NY Times bestseller list for a 6th week.
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