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“Maybe that’s what old men are for. To make decisions that no young man can.”

Author: Louise Penny

We’re back in cozy, unmapped, hard-to-find, isolated Three Pines where murder, shenanigans, intrigue, complicated pasts, and really bad poetry are brewing into another storm of misadventure, fake identities, and ulterior motives. This time, evil from the outer world is once again puncturing the peace and sanctity of this little town, revealing dark pasts and sinister motives.

It starts when an imaginative nine-year-old boy, Laurent Lepage, claims he found a giant monster gun in the woods. The next day, he is discovered, murdered. Clearly, he did find something in the woods, something beyond imagination, and something that caused someone to silence him.

Isabel Lacoste, now the Sûreté Chief Inspector, and her cohort and right-hand man, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, move in to investigate. Soon, they find the monster in the woods, and before long, they look to the now retired Gamache for his help in unraveling a plot decades in the making. Then, there’s another murder, followed by two bumbling Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers who mysteriously arrive in town, and the emergence of a retired professor who knows more than he is claiming. Will Gamache, Lacoste, and Beauvoir be able to find the killer and stop the plot before it is too late?

The Nature of the Beast is a strange addition to the series. The last several have left me lukewarm, and indeed, the characters here do not grow, but the mystery itself, despite its seemingly outlandish nature, is actually compelling. What makes it even more surprising is Penny’s end note, where she explains that the seemingly absurd plot is based in horrifying fact.

Despite my questions about what was found in the woods – not that it existed, but that this town not even on a map is the epicenter – I got into the complicated plot and the fabrications of the shady new characters. The story also ties into an older one, a serial killer from Gamache’s past. Combined together, the clues are well wrought and tense, and it’s a long time before all the puzzle pieces fit together to showcase what is, admittedly, a very good mystery.

What doesn’t work is the same as usual. First, Ruth Zardo is a character who needs to go. Beyond just creating terrible poetry, with its own sense of foreboding self-importance and lack of cadence, she’s an unpleasant old cuss, and it makes no sense that the rest of the town lovingly accepts her cantankerous nature. It is neither cute nor endearing. It’s merely unrealistic and annoying and, of course, she’s a central figure here, with everyone kowtowing to her alleged wisdom, including Gamache, and everyone forgiving her trespasses. Yawn. NO.

Image by Nanne Tiggelman from Pixabay

The other characters are mere backgrounds here. No one really grows, which is fine because as the series has gone on, I’ve come to not like the characters that much. They’re all very self-important and pretentious in their seclusion and not-that-great art. They’re often selfish and backstabbing of one another, and the cozy elements (the decadent description of food and nature) aren’t enough to consistently save them from their backbiting natures. I’m still here because I like the mystery, because I still kind of like Gamache, and because the writing is pretty.

But . . . the writing here is getting a little too verbose even for me, and Dickens is one of my favorite authors. There’s a sense that the book thinks itself clever and smart, and the prose has a certain smug overbearing nature. Not everything needs to be this overwrought, this dripping with double meaning and elusive references. It’s downright pompous and often throws us out of the narrative.

Still, despite my grumbling and the inherent flaws in the series as it continues, The Nature of the Beast was one of the better offerings. The mystery, its strange and complicated nature, and the layers of interaction on an international scale actually drove the story and covered a multitude of sins. I found myself enjoying reading, instead of trying to figure out how many more pages were left. Does this spot of goodness in the midst of devolving chaos redeem the series? Probably not, but I do recommend The Nature of the Beast.

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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