Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache novels 5-9: REVIEWS

I finished 5 Louise Penny books and somehow haven’t posted any reviews yet. So I decided the best way was to put all my thoughts into one post!

Books 5–9 of the Chief Inspector Gamache series were a bit of a rollercoaster.

#5 - The Brutal Telling

The peace typically found within the Village of Three Pines has been shattered once again, with the discovery of a body in the local bistro. Olivier and Gabri’s bistro. Chief Inspector Gamache and his team are once again brought in to find the killer and bring some semblance of normalcy back to the village’s residents. In order to do that, though, Gamache needs to dive deep into one particular resident’s life. What he finds there isn’t something anyone is going to like…

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This story was a bit chaotic, but the good kind of chaotic! There was so much time spent going back and forth from interviewing a suspect, getting information and following up on it, but then going back to the same person to ask more questions because, clearly, they lied the last time. That must be something that real investigators deal with all the time. It would drive me bonkers.

I think this is the first book in the series that ends on a sombre note, which I was not expecting. I thought everything would wrap up well, that it would all get sorted out in the end, but it didn’t! It was almost like Louise gave us all a TV show-worthy cliffhanger leading from one season to the next. It definitely made me want to start book 6 right away—which may have been the goal.

#6 - Bury Your Dead

It’s the annual Winter Carnival in Quebec City, and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is spending a little time on leave to recover after an investigation that went horribly wrong. But violence seems to happen everywhere Gamache looks, and suddenly, he’s helping the local police solve the latest crime.

Elsewhere in Quebec, Jean-Guy Beauvoir is trying to right a wrong that occurred in the last book, “The Brutal Telling”. But I won’t say what that is in case you haven’t read that one yet! Beauvoir discovers a lot of new information.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved Bury Your Dead, and of the 6 books in this series that I’ve read so far—I don’t count me reading book #16 because I read that completely out of order—this is by far my favourite. I’m not usually a big fan of multiple storylines happening at once, but this one worked out so dang well. That being said, of the three main stories being told here, I only truly cared about two out of the three.

I honestly thought I had accidentally skipped a book when I started reading this. References kept being made to this horrible event that killed Sûreté officers, so I must’ve skipped a book, right? Nope, Louise was just working her amazing author imagination to create a stunning story for the reader. And the story unfurled in a pretty chaotic way, but maybe that was representative of how Gamache and Beauvoir were feeling as they recovered from the horrible event they kept remembering (and telling us about in flashbacks).

I loved book 5 (The Brutal Telling), but I loved this book more. Louise just keeps getting better and better. And I still have 14 books ahead of me to catch up on! I’m looking forward to them all.

#7 - A Trick of the Light

It’s time for Clara’s big solo show at the Musée in Montreal, and all of Three Pines has gathered to celebrate her achievements, including members of Chief Inspector Gamache’s team and family. But when an after party at Clara and Peter’s home ends with a woman dead in the garden, it’s almost like Clara’s spotlight is dimmed once again. But who could’ve killed this woman? Who is she? Why was she in Three Pines to begin with? How did she find her way there? And also, how are Gamache and Beauvoir holding up after the events of book 6? That’s what we’ll find out in this book!

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love this series—it’s quickly becoming one of my favourites. And I’m not just saying that because Louise is Canadian, I promise.

That being said, after the wow factor I felt from books 5 and 6, this one wasn’t as good, in my opinion. It was still a good story, and I’m so glad that Clara finally got the success and praise that she deserved after 6 books of her essentially being ignored by the art world and her own dang husband. But when comparing it to book 6, this one just didn’t give me those same feelings. This was more like book 2, where the victim was a bad person, obviously the murderer was a bad person, so was it a real loss of those characters? Nope. Not at all.

But nothing will keep me from continuing on to book 8!

#8 - The Beautiful Mystery

No one is allowed to enter this monastery. It’s home to about two dozen monks, it’s hidden in the wilderness of Quebec, and aside from growing vegetables and making chocolate, these monks sing. They’re actually famous for their singing. But now, their choir director has been killed, and Chief Inspector Gamache and Beauvoir have been called in to solve the crime. But the pair will face more than just a murderer thought this book.  

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am so glad that Louise Penny just constantly changes the formula in her books, so even though this is book 8 in the Gamache series, no book is the same. And this book has zero tie in to The Village of Three Pines, so it’s truly not something we’ve seen before!

This is a locked room mystery, Gamache and Beauvoir are locked inside a monastery—literally locked, because only one person holds the key, and it’s not either of the investigators. Though I didn’t care for most of the mystery, that was fine because it was a book where Gamache and Beauvoir’s relationship changed and it was more character driven than mystery plot figuring-out-who-the-murderer-is driven.

And saying that, the path the characters take in this book is sad. It made me saaaaad. What will happen in book 9? 

#9 - How the Light Gets In

Christmas is approaching in this ninth book, but Chief Inspector Gamache is anything but in a happy holiday spirit. His homicide department has been decimated, his best friend and lieutenant, Inspector Beauvoir, hasn’t spoken to him in months, and more senior, hostile forces are piling up against him. When Myrna from Three Pines reaches out because her friend failed to arrive for the holidays, a new investigation quickly grows into something much larger, with much greater consequences. 

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Just wow, wowowowow. How The Light Gets In is such a dang good book! This gets all the stars from me. ALL OF THEM.

Everything I want to say about this book is about the ending and how it all turns out, and I can’t do that to you! I can’t spoil this! This isn’t even about me just not being a spoiler person—it’s about wanting you to read it and experience it for yourself and how perfectly Louise unravels everything in this book. The best kind of unravelling.

It does make me wonder if Louise originally thought this would be the end of the Chief Inspector Gamache series. (Louise, care to comment?) But as we all probably know, of course it’s not the end, and there are still so many books for me to catch up on! I can’t wait to dive into the next.

Louise Penny... Here are my thoughts:

One thing I really appreciate about this series is how Louise keeps changing the formula. Even 9 books in, it doesn't feel like I'm just reading the same murder mystery over and over again. Sometimes the mystery is the star, sometimes it's the characters, sometimes it's the setting — and sometimes I'm just sitting there wondering how Louise is going to emotionally ruin me.

So… onward to Book 10!

Question of the day:

Have you read the Gamache series? And if you have, which book is your favourite?