All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny

 

Louise Penny is a crime writer like no other. To the uninitiated her prose may seem, at first, a little flowery, a little naive, more suited to a romantic novelist, but that is only softening you up for the introduction to her world of bad guys doing bad things. The crimes you will come across will introduce you to the often horrific goings on outside the picture perfect fictional world of Three Pines, Quebec, a village close to the Vermont border.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec and his wife, Reine Marie, inhabit the two worlds of Three Pines and Quebec City. This story, All the Devils Are Here, however, takes place in Paris where the Gamaches have come to stay in their Paris apartment while they await the imminent birth of their granddaughter. Their daughter, Annie, and son-in-law, Jean Guy Beauvoir, have a son, Honore, and are looking forward to the arrival of their little girl. Annie and Jean Guy have taken up residence in Paris as have the Gamaches’ son, Daniel and his wife, Roslyn, and two daughters.

All the devils really do seem to be hovering in the form of corruption on a grand scale in the big business world in Paris. Armand and Reine Marie have their brilliant intuitive powers working overtime, separately and together, and Jean Guy reverts to his former role of investigator (he was also an inspector with the Surete du Quebec) to get to the bottom of the foul play taking place in his new chosen environment.

There are murders and betrayals and it is hard to know who can be trusted and who relied upon. The action becomes, as is usual in a Louise Penny book, heart stopping, nail biting and riveting as the mystery unravels and the story reaches its denouement.

The story would not have been complete without Three Pines and the Gamaches’ friends and neighbours making their respective presences felt: Gabri and Olivier, Clare, Myrna, Ruth and the duck and the Gamaches’ two (or is it three?) dogs. Snippets of Ruth’s poems are scattered throughout the book and are, as usual, exquisite. There are liberal sprinklings of love, hate, greed, envy, mistrust and redemption and a bit of schmaltz. Quite satisfying really.

I don’t ever like Louise Penny’s abundance of full stops. I don’t need the point hammered home so relentlessly, the words do that very well by themselves. 4 out of 5 for this one.

Published by Minotaur Books.