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.

July 1, 2015

Penny's 11th series entry (after The Long Way Home) has Armand Gamache slowly adjusting to retirement in the small, idyllic, Quebec village of Three Pines. When a local boy is found dead in a ditch, Gamache, feeling guilty about ignoring the young man's tall tales, becomes involved. Soon the familiar cast of characters, including Clara, Gabri, Inspector Beauvoir, Ruth, her duck and the serene Reine-Marie, are all involved in the investigation of the murder and the unthinkable object that precipitated the terrible act. A thread that subtly runs through the book is the disquiet Gamache feels as he tries to find his purpose now that he is no longer the chief inspector of the Surete. VERDICT A strong sense of place, a multilayered plot, and well-crafted (and for Penny's fans, familiar) characters combine for a thoughtful, intriguing tale. More than a simple mystery, Penny's novel peels away the emotional and psychological layers of the inhabitants of Three Pines. Although this book may stand alone, reading the previous titles will give readers context to truly understand and enjoy this latest in the series.--Terry Lucas, Rogers Memorial Lib., Southampton, NY

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2015
The winds of change are freshening in Three Pines. Armand Gamache, former chief inspector of the Surete du Quebec, now retired to the idyllic village north of Montreal, is starting to feel twitchy, pondering the next stage in his life. But even as the future signals change, the past is calling forth a nightmare. When the shocking death of a nine-year-old boy with a penchant for telling tall tales sends Gamache to the woods, looking for clues, he discovers that the boy's last tale was tall but true: a giant missile launcher is found hidden in the woods, pointing toward the U.S. Is it the work of Gerald Bull, a real-life rogue physicist who actually built such a gun? Penny builds this fascinating and still little-known slice of Canadian history into a compelling mystery that leads to an exciting but tantalizingly open-ended finale. A few too many coincidences may be required here to link Three Pines to Gerald Bull's bizarre, shocking career, but the overarching metaphorthe presence of a very large serpent in paradisewill resonate powerfully for devotees of this compelling series.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A 400,000-copy market distribution, combined with all manner of online promotion and Penny's astounding popularity, will ensure that the curious story of Gerald Bull and his very big gun will soon be common knowledge across the world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

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.

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.