Glass Houses

June 26, 2017
Bestseller Penny’s taut 13th novel featuring Chief Supt. Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec (after 2016’s A Great Reckoning) opens at a murder trial in a Montreal courtroom. Judge Maureen Corriveau, who’s trying her first homicide case, suspects that something is wrong with Gamache’s testimony and the conduct of the Chief Crown Prosecutor. As for Gamache, who was the arresting officer in the case, he “knew perfectly well who the murderer was. He was just a little afraid that something would go wrong. And a particularly cunning killer would go free.” Flash back to the recent past, when an ominous costumed figure starts to appear regularly on the green of Gamache’s home town of Three Pines. The subsequent discovery by Gamache’s wife of the murder victim in the local church leads to the unearthing of some disturbing, long-buried secrets that affect the entire community. The familiar, sometimes eccentric, denizens of Three Pines and Gamache’s loyal investigative team help propel the plot to an exciting, high-stakes climax. Agent: Teresa Chris, Teresa Chris Literary Agency.

Starred review from June 15, 2017
A dark, still figure, wearing long black robes and a hood, appears on the charming village green of Three Pines, a small Quebec town; though at first it seems scary but harmless, it turns out to be something much more sinister. The strange figure's appearance coincides with a Halloween party at the local bistro, attended by the usual villagers but also four out-of-town guests. They are friends from the Universite de Montreal who meet for a yearly reunion at the B&B in Three Pines. But this event actually happened months ago, and village resident Armand Gamache, now head of the Surete du Quebec, is recounting the story from the witness stand in a courtroom suffering from oppressive summer heat. Gamache's testimony becomes narrative, explaining how over the course of a few days the masked man grew into a fixture on the village green and morphed slowly into an omen. Gamache's son-in-law and second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, is asked to research the "dark thing's" back story after one of the B&B guests, a journalist, mentions that the figure reminds him of story he did on an old Spanish tradition, that of the "debt collector." It becomes clear, as Gamache relays the events leading up to murder, that "someone in the village had done something so horrific that a Conscience had been called." But did the dark thing come for a villager or for one of their guests? Conscience is an overarching theme in Penny's latest, seeping into the courtroom narrative as Gamache grapples with an enemy much larger than the dark thing, a war he took on as the new Chief Superintendent. His victory depends on the outcome, and the path, of this murder trial. While certain installments in Penny's bestselling series take Gamache and his team to the far reaches of Quebec, others build their tension not with a chase but instead in the act of keeping still--this is one such book. The tension has never been greater, and Gamache has sat for months waiting, and waiting, to act, with Conscience watching close by. A meticulously built mystery that follows a careful ascent toward a breaking point that will leave you breathless. It's Three Pines as you have never seen it before.

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May 15, 2017

Penny's 13th entry in her award-winning "Chief Inspector Gamache" series will take readers back to the village of Three Pines, where Armand Gamache knows something is seriously wrong when a mysterious figure appears and a body is later discovered. An arrest and subsequent murder trial leaves Gamache struggling with his own conscience. [See Prepub Alert, 3/23/17.]

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2017
The heroes of crime-fiction series have a real problem with retirementeven Armand Gamache, who ought to have it nailed. He gets to retire in Three Pines, the off-the-grid Quebec village where the horrors of modernity are held mostly in abeyance (the occasional murder aside). And, yet, Gamache just can't stay off the grid permanently. Now he's agreed to become chief superintendent of the Surete du Quebec, the province's top cop. It's just like Gamache to jump on a sinking ship, and that's what the Surete looks like, with the all-powerful drug cartels seemingly in full control of the province. But Gamache has an audacious plan to change that: a rope-a-dope scheme that will either cut off the cartel monster's head or leave the chief in a jail cell. And let's not forget Three Pines, where a hooded black figure has taken up residence in the village green, just standing there, staring. The gang at the bistro is nonplussed at first, then downright panicked after the figure (or someone wearing its outfit) is found murdered in the basement of the church on the green. It's at this point that Penny's devotees must make a leap of faith: accept that weird stuff keeps happening in Canada's Brigadoon in the face of all probability, or close the damn book and call this whole Three Pines thing off. But if we did that, if we failed to see that Three Pines is a sublime metaphor for the precariousness of harmony wherever we find it, we would be forced to walk away from one of the most entrancing fictional worlds in popular literature, not to mention parting company with a lead character whom we allyoung or old, male or femalelong to be like when we grow up. No, thank you. Let's call the calling off off right now.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Penny has a permanent spot on that enviable short list of writers who combine unwavering quality with mega-sales.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)