Glass Houses

Louise Penny’s new Armande Gamache book is out! Of course I read it in one day, as is normal each year when she produces the next in the series. This one divides the location between Three Pines and our beloved characters there, and Montreal, where Gamache is a witness in a murder trial. He is now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec, and in a battle to control the drugs coming into the province, as well as helping to solve a murder in his village of Three Pines. I particularly enjoyed this book because most of the focus is on Gamache, allowing us more access to him than is usual.

In the Author’s Notes, Louise Penny says, “Some might argue that Three Pines itself isn’t real, and they’d be right, but limited in their view. The village does not exist, physically. But I think of it as existing in ways that are far more important and powerful. Three Pines is a state of mind. When we choose tolerance over hate. Kindness over cruelty. Goodness over bullying. When we choose to be hopeful, not cynical. Then we live in Three Pines.” It is one of the things I like about these books: even in the midst of ugliness, there is always hope and kindness.