Friday, September 18, 2015

The Nature of the Beast, by Louise Penny

Again a book I highly recommend, and another one that I paid money for, it was not free, so that should tell you how much I like Louise Penny's writing.  Enjoy

Inspector Armand Gamache has retired to the little village of Three Pines. He and his wife are there to recover, regain strength and just enjoy the quiet comfort of a small village, good friends and quiet solitude.

One of the villages is a nine year old boy who loves to pretend that he is fighting off alien invaders, enemy combatants or criminals of all stripes to save and protect the village. He can be a nuisance some times running into town and yelling about an invasion, kind of like the boy who cries wolf so many times that people quit listening. But Armand loves the little guy and usually listens to him. But this time Laurent Lepage is trying to tell everyone about a gigantic gun hidden in the forest along with a monster. No one believes him, not even Armand.

The next day the boy goes missing. The following day he is found dead. Was it an accident or murder? Armand thinks it was murder but the police think accident. He calls his old friends up and asks them to take another look and convinces them that it was murder.

That sets the stage for the strangest of all discoveries and a case that is not just police jurisdiction but also has implications for National Security. They find Laurent's large gun and it is the biggest "Super Gun" anyone has ever seen. But what is it doing in the forest under camouflage that has been in place for most likely decades?

Then a second murder takes place and everyone is scrambling to determine who, what, why and how these murders are happening. So much for retirement. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is back on the case and helping and watching his associates (his disciples) do their job and bring to justice the criminals involved, or do they?

Louise Penny takes a small village with little in the way of value and turns it into a scene of international importance. Her writing is first rate and has an edge to it that keeps you involved, keeps you guessing and makes you sit down and "Think," which is what Armand Gamache would do.

I love this series and this is just another great book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series.

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