{"id":677,"date":"2012-08-29T22:17:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T04:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=677"},"modified":"2012-08-29T22:19:07","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T04:19:07","slug":"louise-penny-the-beautiful-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/louise-penny-the-beautiful-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Louise Penny: The Beautiful Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This novel, the eighth in Penny\u2019s award winning and beloved Armand Gamache series, is yet another variation on the golden age form she uses as a template.\u00a0 This one is basically a classic locked room mystery, though it\u2019s so much more, as are all of Penny\u2019s novels.\u00a0 Set not in Three Pines but in the obscure and remote monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-des-Loups (literally \u201cAmong the Wolves\u201d), the victim is a monk, and the only two officers on site are Gamache and Beauvoir.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is a beautifully constructed book, the form following the theme.\u00a0 The monks of this obscure monastery are world renowned for their beautiful rendering of Gregorian chants, thanks to a recent CD that achieved wide distribution and acclaim.\u00a0 Gregorian chants are sung to a very set and specific set of rules, and are simple and repetitive, the singing and listening both a form of mediation and prayer.<\/p>\n

The monks at Entre-des-Loups are all gifted musically, and, Gamache suspects, have been recruited for their musical ability as much as for their devotion to God.\u00a0 The murdered monk is the choirmaster, found bludgeoned in the Abbot\u2019s private garden, to which only the Abbot and his secretary have the key.\u00a0 An apparently simple and straightforward crime, much like the apparently simple and straightforward chants that are the monks\u2019 specialty.<\/p>\n

As Gamache and Beauvoir acclimate to the community, joining the monks at prayer, meals, and daily tasks (while gently questioning each of them), they are confused by some aspects of this apparently simple case.\u00a0\u00a0 Why is there a split between the monks?\u00a0 Why was the dead man clutching a puzzling piece of hand transcribed music?\u00a0 Who is loyal to the abbot, and who to the choirmaster?<\/p>\n

Gamache and Beauvoir are confronting their own demons, laid out so powerfully in Bury Your Dead<\/em>.\u00a0 Gamache has recovered from the terrible crisis that injured both him and Beauvoir and killed several other officers, but Beauvoir still seems shaky.\u00a0 When Gamache\u2019s boss turns up unexpectedly, the animosity between Gamache and his boss is apparent while all the reasons behind it are not.<\/p>\n

Penny has taken a simple form \u2013 the locked room mystery \u2013 and applied a simple form to it, the monastery with the chanting monks, the few police officers, the pared down cast of characters.\u00a0 But there is richness in the simplicity.\u00a0 As one of the characters says to another:\u00a0 \u201cIt uses all the rules, but then adjusts them slightly, as though the old chant was the foundation, and this\u2026a whole new structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, in a nutshell, is to me, Louise Penny\u2019s gift.\u00a0 She utilizes a classic mystery format, but she finds so much that is new within it.\u00a0 As each book varies so much from one another \u2013 in tone, in emotion \u2013 it seems that her journey of exploration will be a long one.\u00a0 This variation is a thoughtful meditation on music, spirituality and as always, the emotional ties that both bind and divide.\u00a0 It\u2019s another lovely book from a writer whose work is a gift to readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This novel, the eighth in Penny\u2019s award winning and beloved Armand Gamache series, is yet another variation on the golden age form she uses as a template.\u00a0 This one is basically a classic locked room mystery, though it\u2019s so much more, as are all of Penny\u2019s novels.\u00a0 Set not in Three Pines but in the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","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=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}