Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
On first sight this appears to be a copy of The Paston Treasure, a priceless work known also as A World of Curiosities that dates from the 1600s. But on closer inspection the painting reveals some oddities — among the objects depicting life in the seventeenth century are modern day items like digital watches and model aeroplanes. Penny at one point mentions a painter who became great because she ambitiously stepped outside of her comfort zone and tried something new. So I think Penny, in creating what is a kind of thriller she has not quite done before, is creates a kind of homage to a once popular horror writer here, whose name if i shared it would give away a central plot point (oh, somebody else will tell you). Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel. Despite my best intentions to slowly enjoy this book, I devoured it in one huge gulp. Oh well, it just means I have to wait longer for my next Gamache novel.
They didn’t need proof. All a woman had to be was alive. Just being a woman was, in the church’s eyes, evil.’ The 2022 crime mystery book follows the investigation into a series of murders in Quebec, and briefly references the real life 1989 École Polytechnique massacre. The world is fueled by an inner desire to see experiences as a means to fulfillment. But just which side of the dark/light road leads us to that end?From her basket of recurring themes, Penny choses in A World of Curiosities to focus on the sometimes unintended impact of art and literature on emotions and actions, and the potential for good and evil to exist in any individual, no matter how well one or the other may be hidden. As with many of the series' books that are set in the tiny village of Three Pines, this one includes a blend of the all-too-real-world with what seems to be a vaguely magical-realism-world. I was happy to see the return of Amelia. I really hated how she got jettisoned like 6 books ago, she was a welcome addition (IMHO) to the series.
Rogers, Shelagh (24 March 2023). "Louise Penny's A World of Curiosities reveals Chief Inspector Armand Gamache's origins". CBC's The Next Chapter (radio program).
This is the 18th title in the series featuring Armand Gamache, head of the Sûreté du Québec, and his friends and neighbours in the small village of Three Pines. It has all the features we’ve come to expect and love: the camaraderie of the inhabitants of Three Pines; the Chief’s intuitive understanding of human nature and an intricately woven, emotionally nuanced plot. Harriet looked in the mirror, her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. It was the first of June and she’d forgotten to say, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.
In this book we learn that Gamache first met Jean-Guy at an outlying Sûreté station when Gamache was investigating the murder of a woman named Clothilde Arsenault. Agent Beauvoir - whose behavior verged on insubordination - had been relegated to a desk job in the department's basement, but Gamache saw something in the young man and made him part of the Sûreté homicide squad. The writing was typical Penny, lots of lyrical sections, poems, dialogue, cliffhangers. But the flow in this one was up and down. It started off very strong and then it just started to drag, especially towards the end. I’d rate most of them in the 3-4 star range: they’re engrossing but flawed. The series’ hero worship of Gamache is always too cloying, and it starts out strong in this novel with the narrator reminding us how good, kind, and honest Gamache is. Although he’s been exposed, as the head of homicide, to the worst of humanity, the novel tells us that Gamache remains hopeful, compassionate, and relatively emotionally healthy. I should add that he remains all this even when the series has taken some of the people closest to Gamache and turned them into murderers. For me, that’s a cheap and unrealistic plot device that the series overrelies on.Kudos, Madam Penny, for proving that Canada does deserve its placate on the map of strong settings for stellar mysteries! Wow, I can't believe I've just read the 18th book of the series! I thought it would have been rounded off long ago. Maybe I would have stopped reading the series too, because the author's writing style can be quite annoying. She varies her sentence length. Too much. Sometimes, for no apparent reason. It's a bit less obvious when listening.
A WORLD OF CURIOSITIES is filled with misdirection and red herrings at every turn, even though the clues are there. Even though one instinctively knows, at least hopes, everything will be alright, the suspense is such that the end may engender tears of relief. The reader is so invested in the characters, one experiences their pain, fear, and anger, but also their love. This is one of the most suspenseful books Penny has written and one that must have required a tremendous amount of research. It may also be one of her best. I always appreciate the poetry sprinkled throughout the series, and the dialogue between our various Three Pines friends is often funny and witty. The series’ romanticism about Gamache and rural village life notwithstanding, the pleasant scenes of home, art, and love are comforting, as is— as always— Gamache coming out right in the end.
Excerpt
I have dispatcht this chimicall embassador to let thee knowe that I am passing well, but what I shall returne home I am a little doubtfull. One while we are Italians, Another while Tur’ks, by & by Egiptians, & eftsoones merry Greeks, but all very well and handsome . . . I might spend another week and not see all the rarityes. Indeed heer is a world of curiosityes & some very rich ones, as cabinets & Juells.” This is, at a glance, many of Goodreads Penny fans’ favorite book. It’s obviously well-crafted and very ambitious, (though maybe too much so; see below), as Penny tries to connect the dots between all sorts of important historical and fictional entities: The head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec had been called away from Sunday breakfast with his young family. He’d flown hours northeast from his home in Montréal to the shores of this godforsaken lake to kneel beside the body that now bobbed in near-freezing waters. She was shoved half ashore by the gray waves that were growing increasingly insistent by the minute. The most richly accomplished of the brothers’ pairings to date—and given Connelly’s high standards, that’s saying a lot. For Penny, the novel is a narrative tour de force, drawing brilliantly on some dark moments in Québec history and leading Gamache and the residents of Three Pines to a hard-won, thoroughly unsentimental recognition that forgiveness is our most powerful magic.” — Booklist (starred review)
Great Deal 
New Comment