Thursday, October 9, 2014

Review: “The Long Way Home,” Louise Penny

Mystery review of The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

By Paul Carrier

In this 10th Chief Inspector Gamache mystery, the unthinkable has finally happened to Armand Gamache, the courtly and insightful head of the homicide division in the Québec provincial police force and — so we have been told in several previous novels — possibly the most celebrated cop in all of Canada.

Gamache has retired. And moved, with his wife Reine-Marie, to the bucolic Québec village of Three Pines, a town that time forgot whose likable and quirky residents figured prominently in Louise Penny’s previous novels. But fear not. Although Gamache, who’s only in his 50s, thinks he’s settling into a relaxing and predictable rhythm that revolves around reading, spending time with his wife and walking their beloved dog Henri, Clara Morrow has other plans.

Clara, one of the Three Pines regulars, is the wife of fellow artist Peter Morrow, whose career began to fade just as Clara’s blossomed. That took a toll on their marriage, and the duo agreed to a trial separation a year ago, with the understanding that Peter would return on the one-year anniversary of their parting, so he and Clara could reevaluate their relationship. That date has come and gone with no sign of Peter, and no message from him either. A worried Clara finally turns to Gamache for help in finding her husband.

Gamache calls in his former deputy at the Sûreté du Québec, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, to assist in the search for the missing painter. The early stages of the investigation reveal that Peter flew from Canada to Paris, Florence, Venice and Scotland before returning to Toronto and heading out to Québec City. That’s where the trail runs dry, at least initially.

When paintings that Peter created during his travels surface at his sister’s home in Toronto, Clara arranges to have them mailed to Three Pines, to mine them for clues as to Peter’s mindset and whereabouts. Over time, it starts to look like Peter may have found his way to a remote spot that is “in Québec but not of Québec,” an area “unique in the world.”

Is Peter alive? Did he commit suicide? Was he murdered? The longer the search continues, the farther afield the story takes us. Although the novel opens in Three Pines, much of the action takes place elsewhere. Québec, we are reminded, is a very large place, sections of which are isolated and not readily accessible.

Several of Penny’s beloved characters from the earlier novels return this time around. In addition to Clara Morrow, there’s Ruth Zardo, the acclaimed but misanthropic poet who makes the rounds in Three Pines with her pet duck, Rosa; Olivier and Gabri, the gay couple who operate the town’s bistro, as well as the local bed and breakfast; and Myrna Landers, a psychologist turned bookstore owner who is Clara’s confidante and Gamache’s therapist.

As always, Penny takes advantage of the unique setting she has chosen for her novels, which is a big part of the series’ charm. Although Three Pines is a largely English-speaking town in Québec’s Eastern Townships, Québec as a whole is an overwhelmingly French-speaking province. Gamache and Reine-Marie are native French speakers, but both are fully bilingual, as is Beauvoir. Thus, the dialogue in The Long Way Home is in English, with occasional French words and phrases dropped in to remind us where we are, and who we’re dealing with.

A fictional village, Three Pines remains a somewhat magical place that seems to attract psychologically wounded people, including Gamache, whose career left him with emotional scars. Residents see the isolated community, which appears on no map, as a place of healing and tranquility in a troubled world. Three Pines sits nestled in a valley, “as though held in the palm of an ancient hand. A stigmata in the Québec countryside. Not a wound, but a wonder.”

Still, this is no idyllic retreat for the Pollyannas of the world. The people of Three Pines are opinionated and witty, acerbic and judgmental. All of which makes for some funny passages and crackling dialogue. When Vincent Gilbert, a physician who has become a recluse, makes an appearance, we’re told that some of the locals view him as a saint, while others see him as an asshole. In a spirit of compromise, the residents of Three Pines have dubbed him the “asshole saint.”

This wasn’t one of my favorite books in the series. For one thing, a retired Gamache is not as compelling a character as an active-duty Gamache. And the novel includes an overly long, distracting discussion about the nature of muses. Yet Penny builds and maintains suspense as Gamache and his traveling companions try to track Peter down, making The Long Way Home a quick-paced read that closes with a horrid plot twist.

The bookstores are full of well-crafted mysteries with compelling characters, and Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache novels certainly meet those criteria. But she brings something else to these pages — a knack for conveying the complex emotions, deep-seated motivations and private turmoil — in effect, the inner lives — of her characters. Their souls are laid bare.