Book Report: The Beautiful Mystery

7. Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery (2012) (3/22/22)

This book takes Chief Inspector Garmand and Inspector Beauvoir away from Montréal, never mind the village of Three Pines, to a remote monastery where a monk—the director of the twenty-four-voice choir practicing plainchant in honor of God—has been found murdered. The suspects are easy to keep track of, though the clues are few. One day in, Garmand's boss—and nemesis—arrives, stirring things up. The story refers us back to an incident in a previous book, to add an extra layer or two. 

All in all, it was a satisfying enough read, though a bit slow, with too little texture. I'm not sure I bought some of the premise—a long-lost book of Gregorian chants figures in, as does a recording these monks made that turned them from "long lost to the mists of time" into instantaneous celebrities. Some of the more philosophical points, like how to balance reliance on the will of God with material needs like roof tiles and heating ducts, or ego with community, were nicely done. The motive of the murderer I did not find convincing. 

The book ends with a crisis between Garmand and Beauvoir, so I am now keen to read the next in the series—which I am glad to see, from the coming-soon excerpt at the end, takes us back to Three Pines. There's plenty of texture in that little village.

By way of a sample passage from The Beautiful Mystery (a reference to plainchant), here's a conversation between Beauvoir and one of the monks, Antoine.

     "You don't like the monastery?" [asked Antoine].
     "Of course not. You do?"
     "I wouldn't be here if I didn't," said Frère Antoine. "I love Saint-Gilbert."
     It was such a simple statement it left Beauvoir dumbfounded. . . . No confusion, no ambuguity. It just was. Like the sky just was, and the stones just were. It was natural and absolute.
     "Why?" Beauvoir leaned forward. It was one of the questions he'd been dying to ask this monk with the beautiful voice and the body so like his own.
     "Why do I love it here? What's not to love?" Frère Antoine looked around his cell as though it was a suite at the Ritz in Montréal. "We play hockey in the winter, fish in the summer, swim in the lake and collect berries I know what each day will bring, and yet each day feels like an adventure. I get to hang around men who believe as I do, and yet are different enough to be endlessly fascinating. I live in the house of my Father and learn from my brothers. And I get to sing the words of God in the voice of God."
     The monk leaned forward, his strong hands resting on his knees.
     "Do you know what I found here?"
     Beauvoir shook his head.
     "I found peace."

Which is something that Beauvoir could use a dose of . . .