Review: A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #4)

I’m having a wonderful time reading these books in order. Whenever I feel the world is getting too much, I pick up the next instalment of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache’s mysteries and I feel there is still hope for humanity.

This book is not set in our favourite village of Three Pines, but in the luxurious, and isolated, Manoir Bellechasse, where Armand and his wife Reine-Marie are celebrating their wedding anniversary. Of course, a murder takes place, and Armand leads his team with his usual kindness and big heart.

I won’t tell you more, however, as always, Penny’s writing elevates this book well above others in the genre. I leave you with an example:

Grief was dagger-shaped and sharp and pointed inward. It was made of fresh loss and old sorrow. Rendered and forged and sometimes polished. Irene Finney had taken her daughter’s death and to that sorrow she’d added a long life of entitlement and disappointment, of privilege and pride. And the dagger she’d fashioned was taking a brief break from slashing her insides, and was now pointed outward. At Armand Gamache.

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• Louise Penny