This is the last of the currently written and published Chief Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny. So now I am done until August, when the new book appears. Which I am going to order in the next couple of days.
The conspiracy plot of this book appears in slow motion, while the presenting mystery, involving the murder of the last of a set of Canadian quintuplets, seems all but insolvable. With the murderee in her 70s, the rest of the family gone long ago, the only documents those of officialdom, how is one to understand? Inspector Isabel Lacoste is the sidekick on this mystery, and on the conspiracy itself, as Gamache’s team is disbanded and spread throughout the Surete.
All this really springs from undone (because no proof existed) tasks in previous books, and is dark and monstrous work. Superintendent Terese Brunel and her puzzle loving doctor husband have much work to do in this novel, as does Agent Nichol, herself a dark presence in previous volumes.
These are rich books, with swirls and strands throughout. Simple, complex, joyful, despairing, yet full of evidence of humanity, trust and truth. They leave the reader / me feeling fulling of experience and wisdom.