The Nature of the Beast

Starred review from June 15, 2015
The bucolic Quebec village of Three Pines again proves no refuge in Penny’s stellar 11th Armand Gamache novel (after 2014’s The Long Way Home). Gamache has settled in the small community after retiring from the Sûreté, where he worked as a homicide detective. But he’s drawn back to the hunt after Laurent Lepage, a nine-year-old boy with a penchant for crying wolf, is found dead under circumstances that Gamache finds suspicious. The death followed Laurent’s latest fantastic—and disbelieved—claim, of having found a gun as big as a building with a winged monster on it in the woods. Despite Gamache’s unofficial status, he’s allowed to work the case, which takes multiple unexpected turns. In this typically engaging and fairly clued installment, Gamache wrestles with whether he can truly be content with the quiet life Three Pines offers, a struggle that echoes the choices, past and present, others have made about their responsibility to confront the evil the human spirit is capable of. Series fans will delight in Penny’s continued complex fleshing out of characters they have come to love. Author tour. Agent: Teresa Chris, Teresa Chris Literary Agency.

Starred review from July 15, 2015
In Inspector Gamache's 11th outing, the sheltering forest around his small village of Three Pines is revealed to be a hiding place for unexpected evil. Armand Gamache, former head of homicide at the Surete du Quebec, is learning to let go and be happy with his new life in Three Pines, far from the evil that ate away at him for years. His former colleagues and friends poke fun at him, saying the great inspector will never truly hang up his hat, but these jokes turn deadly serious when an imaginative 9-year-old boy named Laurent is murdered shortly after telling what seemed to be a tall tale about a massive gun wielded by a monster in the woods. When it's discovered that the boy was not exaggerating even in the slightest, Gamache's mind quickly switches back to questioning his surroundings and the people who inhabit this space-many of them his close friends. Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste and her right hand, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, take up residence in Three Pines, and with Gamache's sideline help, they begin to find out what sort of darkness lurks just outside of town. Penny uses her well-known, idyllic setting as the center point of a mystery with global scope and consequences, spanning decades and implicating many, including series veterans. What makes this story most magical, though, is how the many aspects of this spiraling tale can be connected by a Bible verse and related lines from a Yeats poem: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" It's with this eye for detail that Penny sketches the "nature of the beast"-evil that has the potential to grow even in the most unexpected places. An especially terrifying character returning from Gamache's past is the perfect reminder of the dark side of human nature, but that side does not always win out. Penny is an expert at pulling away the surface of her characters to expose their deeper-and often ugly-layers, always doing so with a direct but compassionate hand.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 15, 2015
Penny's ten previous Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels have made her a No. 1 "New York Times" best-selling author, and she has the Crime Writers' Association New Blood Dagger and five Agatha Awards tucked on her shelf, too. Here, the disappearance of a lad in Gamache's Quebec village famed for his tall tales shakes things up.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 28, 2015
At the start of this production, Penny offers a sweet farewell to the late Ralph Cosham, the original and sole reader of the series until his death last year. Simultaneously, she introduces his replacement, British actor Bathurst, who seems every bit as proficient as his predecessor at capturing the moods and mores of former Sûreté Chief Inspector Gamache and the other citizens of the usually cozy, secluded little Canadian village of Three Pines. For this adventure, arguably the series’s best, both hero and hamlet are in a state of unease after a nine-year-old boy, known for his annoying exaggerations, is found dead, and his claim that he found a gun in the woods “as big as a building” proves to be accurate. Along with a plot as mysterious and compelling as any she has concocted, Penny continues to fill in the blanks of her characters’ lives, this time focusing on the village’s prime eccentric, the aging poet Ruth Zardo, who lives with a pet duck. The new reader offers the author a notable assist, segueing out of Gamache’s initially weary mood by quickening his speech after learning of the boy’s death, and finally building to a full-throated involvement in piecing together the history of the huge weapon. But the biggest challenge Bathurst handily meets is in reflecting the emotional changes in Ruth, as long-buried elements of her past are brought to the surface by the unearthing of the weapon of mass destruction. A Minotaur hardcover.

December 1, 2015

Penny (The Long Way Home) takes listeners back to Three Pines for another enthralling psychological mystery. Armand Gamache, now retired, becomes enmeshed in a frantic search for a missing child in his quiet Quebec community, creating a tale of murder, imminent danger, and the potential for mass destruction. Many social, scientific, and philosophical issues are examined and resolved and, unsurprisingly, true retirement doesn't seem to be in the cards for the famous detective. The work is splendidly narrated by Robert Bathurst, following the death of longtime series narrator Ralph Cosham. VERDICT A solid entry in a satisfying series. ["A strong sense of place, a multilayered plot, and well-crafted...characters combine for a thoughtful, intriguing tale": LJ 7/15 starred review of the Minotaur: St. Martin's hc.]--Sandra C. Clariday, Tennessee Wesleyan Coll. Lib., Athens

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.