{"id":2330,"date":"2017-07-25T18:23:44","date_gmt":"2017-07-26T01:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=2330"},"modified":"2017-07-25T18:23:44","modified_gmt":"2017-07-26T01:23:44","slug":"louise-penny-glass-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/louise-penny-glass-houses\/","title":{"rendered":"Louise Penny: Glass Houses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Forget retirement. Gamache is now head of the ENTIRE Surete. After the events of the last novel, Gamache has taken on corruption on a larger scale \u2013 he\u2019s literally moved on from the academy to the world at large. Penny, as always, skillfully layers her story. In this outing, she jumps between Gamache\u2019s testimony at a trial, a murder in Three Pines, and the Surete\u2019s \u2013 and Gamache\u2019s \u2013 fear of the drug crisis, specifically the opioid epidemic and how best to fight it. While Julia Keller\u2019s new book (Fast Falls the Night<\/em>) also focuses on the opioid epidemic, she goes for the personal; Penny goes for the epic. Keller\u2019s view is far more pessimistic than Penny\u2019s ultimately optimistic one.<\/p>\n

The murder in Three Pines comes after an especially creepy set-up. I think in an alternate universe, Penny might be a writer of gothic ghost stories, as many of her books have that kind of spooky element. In this one, there\u2019s a figure in a black hood and a mask, standing unmoving on the green in Three Pines. He\u2019s very unsettling, refuses to answer questions, and eventually there\u2019s a kind of cone of silence surrounding him \u2013 kids no longer play there, there\u2019s no activity of any kind. There\u2019s just a kind of dreadful silence. As in the best ghost stories, you\u2019re more creeped out by what\u2019s in your own imagination than by what\u2019s on the page, though that\u2019s creepy enough.<\/p>\n

It turns out the figure is an early incarnation of what in Spain is known as a Cobrador del Frac, a figure who dresses in top hat and tails and follows someone around who owes a debt. They usually pay up, as public shaming is a very powerful tool. The earlier incarnation was simply a \u201cconscience\u201d \u2013 they were out for a karmic debt to be paid, so to speak. So of course in Three Pines, everyone is wondering just whose karmic debt needs attention. The question, of course, is answered by a murder, but that\u2019s all I can say without giving away points of this clever plot.<\/p>\n

Penny is very concerned in this novel with conscience \u2013 there\u2019s even a chapter (chapter 8, as another avid reader pointed out), detailing conscience and how past deeds affect various Three Pines residents. Conscience, and ultimately, justice \u2013\u00a0whether inside or outside of law \u2013\u00a0becomes the overriding theme of the book. I think this is a theme that has concerned mystery writers, with its rogue police officers, amateur sleuths, and knitting old ladies, from time immemorial. Would you work outside the set rule of law to do what adheres to the rules \u2013 or do what is just? I think we mystery readers know the answer, and mystery writers have been helping us figure it out with their clever, well told stories, from Wilkie Collins on forward.<\/p>\n

How great that we as readers also get to enjoy a fabulous story as we ponder right and wrong. To me, that\u2019s what makes mysteries the greatest and most enjoyable of all genres. Louise Penny adds her beautiful words and stories to this canon. The end of the novel, as all Louise Penny novels do, had me dissolved in tears, but a Penny novel offers a good<\/em> cry. You feel cleansed after reading the book. That explains a great deal of her popularity, I think, but so do Gamache and Three Pines itself. Now to wait a whole other year until the next book\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forget retirement. Gamache is now head of the ENTIRE Surete. After the events of the last novel, Gamache has taken on corruption on a larger scale \u2013 he\u2019s literally moved on from the academy to the world at large. Penny, as always, skillfully layers her story. In this outing, she jumps between Gamache\u2019s testimony at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-2330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2332,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions\/2332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}