Book Report: How the Light Gets In

18. Louise Penny, How the Light Gets In (2013) (8/22/22) (BB #5)

Book number 9 in the Armand Gamache series—and my third for this very year, it seems. I do enjoy the characters Penny has created, the tiny village of Three Pines, and the trouble she can get people into. Going for a visit there helps me relax. Even while I hope to help solve the mystery at hand.

This one involves a variation on the Dionne Quintuplets, when the last surviving one is murdered in her home—with a crucial link to Three Pines. But behind the scenes, there's rampant corruption in Quebec's police department to be fought, including the dismantling of Gamache's homicide division. There's the tragic dissolution of Gamache's beloved right-hand man Jean-Guy Beauvoir. There's also bacon, snow sloshing into boots, the difference between a bookstore and a librairie, satellite dishes and computer hacking, and the "Huron Carol." 

As she often does, Penny combines stories. I'm not sure I entirely bought the "motive" in the Quints murder, but who knows? In a situation that unique, anything might go, right? As for the corruption story, Penny pulls out all the stops. But thanks to our hero, well... I'm not going to give anything away. Gamache does, however (this isn't really giving anything away, because I don't believe it for a second), resign. 

I wonder how book 10 will begin?

It's difficult to review a Louise Penny mystery. When I come back and reread these reports, I myself often wonder just what the book was about. But seriously: I don't want to give anything away.

Anyway, this one I rated 4 stars out of 5 on Goodreads. I didn't flag any passages to quote.  Except possibly this one.

But he realized Henri already knew all he'd ever need. He knew he was loved and he knew how to love.

Henri being Gamache's German shepherd.