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Armand and Ren-Marie are a model loving couple, and their family is by now a model, too. Goodness, kindness, prevails, and as things seem to get worse in the world (and in the books), Gamache’s insistent ethical messages get all the more insistent. “Cosies” were the way the early books were described; even Penny said the murders in the books were sort of incidental to her characters and their world. These two were children when their mother was brutally murdered, which was only the tip of the iceberg. Revelations soon emerged about countless amounts of abuse, which crippled those working the case. Some wonder just how innocent they were at the time of their mother’s death. Louise Penny succumbs to the Woke culture. There is little character development, almost no humor, the award winning style of her other books is entirely missing. The usual murder intertwined with Three Pines life and a social problem is abandoned. Now she spends her time arguing for gun control, better support for emotionally damaged children and other social problems in a manner that makes one think she is shaking her finger at you. This story is about pedophilia, of course supported by corrupt police and a killer the tortures his victims before decapitating them. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Robert Bathurst, who does a good job, though his 'women's voices' are a bit off.
A World of Curiosities is Louise Penny's 18th novel in a series featuring the fictional character Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Penny delves into the nature of evil, sensitively exploring the impact of the dreadful events she describes while bringing a warmth and humanity to her disparate cast of characters that, unusually for a crime novel, leaves you feeling better about the world once you’ve finished’ BOOK OF THE MONTH, OBSERVER
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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.
The World of Curiosities (#18 of the Inspector Armand Gamache series) is kind of a tame and playful title for Louise Penny’s most disturbing and violent book. Bestialities might be a better word, truth in advertising. Early on in the series I read others refer to “twee” world-making: (The fictional!) Three Pines, a kind of haven against the horrors of the world, and we all wanted to move there and have Olivier and Gabry serve us amazing food and wine and Scotch and warm ourselves near their fire. Anne Lamarque, a woman accused of being a witch in the 1670's, is honored as well as the 14 women slain in 1989 in Ruth's poem:
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Robert Bathurst performs this 18th Inspector Gamache mystery with the assurance of one who knows the village of Three Pines and its (mostly) gentle residents well....fans are in for a treat." - AudioFile Magazine (Earphones Award Winner) In the following years Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie take Fiona under their wings, and make her feel like part of their family in Three Pines. Now Fiona and another young woman from Three Pines, Harriet Landers - niece of bookstore owner Myrna Landers - are graduating from engineering school and the village plans a big celebration. The importance of The Paston Treasure lies in the international scope and interest of the objects portrayed, reflecting both nature and the skills of humans. It was the subject of an exhibition in 2018 in which Norwich Castle Museum in partnership with the Yale Center for British Art in the USA, reunited, for the first time in 350 years, as many as possible of the objects depicted in the painting. [6] [7] 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) A World of Curiosities is the 18th in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and it was breathtaking! How does author Louise Penny keep finding these ideas, the plots, the brilliant writing that turns into a book like this? The world of curiosities that Armand and Jean-Guy turned up, setting a huge puzzle which needed to be solved, was excellent. Highly recommended.
The early books each featured a murder case that was solved within the book but there was also a storyline that ran across several titles. This dealt with the Chief’s suspicions of a conspiracy within the heart of the Sûreté. A World of Curiosities is a fiction book written by Canadian author and former journalist Louise Penny. It is the 18th novel in a series of mystery novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. [1] It was published by Minotaur Books [2] as a sequel to Penny's 2021 book The Madness of Crowds. [3]In a separate plot thread, Gamache is called upon to solve the mystery of a secret room discovered in the attic of the village bookstore. Inside, the villagers discover a long lost copy of a “grimoire” an old book thought to have been used by witches to summon demons. Nearby is a huge painting. Second, the novel’s main antagonist, the serial killer Fleming, is imbued with too many contradictory characteristics. A religious fanatic, his initial imprisonment was for creating a seven-headed beast of Babylon by murdering and stitching together seven victims, yet his murder plan for Gamache is altogether areligious. That seems inconsistent. Additionally, Fleming isn’t charismatic or charming; he’s terrifying, and the novel describes both Gamache and Beauvoir’s feelings of horror in Fleming’s presence. The book characterizes Fleming, in jail, as simply radiating evil. Yet, he is able to pass for some time as the loving, kind, and wise minister of Three Pines’ local church, caring for and loving a dying wife. Nobody so much as says, “Yeah, I don’t like that guy” in the novel. He also seems to have unlimited funds and resources: How else are you able to have your entire identity in prison swapped with someone else’s so you can escape, leaving a trail of murder behind as you tie up loose ends and send your wife traveling as far as the UK to help set up your murder plan? Where does this money come from? How is he able to create totally new identities for himself? Finally, the reveal that Fleming is related to Fiona (but not Sam) doesn’t add anything to the plot or the characters, because ultimately that relationship is unrelated to the reasons he decides to target Gamache in the first place. In unsealing that room, an old enemy is released into their world. Into their lives. And into the very heart of Armand Gamache’s home. Kudos, Madam Penny, for proving that Canada does deserve its placate on the map of strong settings for stellar mysteries! 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:
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