THE LONG WAY HOME by Louise Penny

Now peacefully nestled in his retirement home in the small village of Three Pines, the former Head of Homicide Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has been recovering the physical, emotional and psychological blows of his last few years working in the Sûreté du Québec's provincial police force.

Armand, along with his wife Reine-Marie, are happily settling into a peaceful life filled with small everyday joys. Their daughter Annie, now happily married with Jean- Guy Beauvoir, a detective and former mentee of Armand, visits regularly. Yet, this small globe of peace is soon shattered by a request from Clara Morrow, an artist friend.

A brilliant painter and full of life, Clara had separated from her husband a year ago with a promise he would return on the one year anniversary. Peter Morrow had not come back. What has happened to him? Will Armand help her look? Yet, where will this request lead them? Who will tell the truth? Who is hiding the truth?

THE LONG WAY HOME is best-selling author and internationally acclaimed Louise Penny's tenth novel in her famous Chief Inspector Gamache series. Following the brilliant success Penny's How the Light Gets in, ex-Inspector Gamache now picks up and follows a new investigative trail, but now as a civilian, as Clara's request leads to a very unusual quest. Fans of the series have been eagerly awaiting this latest adventure and are sure to enjoy its well-crafted interplay of sunny patches and calm waters while dark undercurrents ripple and surface hinting at deeper undercurrents.

For readers new to this series, I am surprising myself by saying this is almost as wonderful a place to start reading as the beginning book STILL LIFE. As Gamache considers the request and ongoing events unfold, the storyline circles back to events in the earlier books, yet so skillfully crafted in such a way that new readers will quickly get a strong understanding of the character of Gamache. Warning: Once you start in on this series, you will definitely yearn for more and you are lucky that you have the previous nine books to get pulled into!

Once again Penny brings us back to the authentically based, but fictional town of Three Pines in the Eastern Townships of Quebec with her array of quirky and artistic characters. As Gamache and Beauvoir, along with Clara and Myra, seek out the missing artist and all the places he has been, Gamache relies on his ability to carefully weigh the actions and words of each person he encounters as they attempt to find a trail which eventually leads them across the ocean and then back to the foggy, brooding and hauntingly beautiful North Shore of the St. Lawrence River. Having been to many of the places highlighted in the quest, I am very impressed with how Penny is able to bring them all so vividly to life. Like the other books in the series, THE LONG WAY HOME tantalizes the reader with just the right blend of humour, suspense, courage and wisdom that is Penny's hallmark.

THE LONG WAY HOME is definitely not the typical police procedural novel, like some of the others, yet there are lots of clues to ponder. The conclusion is dramatic and startling, yet it allows enough light in its crackling ending for more potentially in the future (at least that is my hope). So, dash out and get your copy of THE LONG WAY HOME and enjoy the journey!

Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand
Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté
du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. On
warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small
book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. “There is a
balm in Gilead,” his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the
dust jacket, “to make the wounded whole.”

While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm,
Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has
failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the
first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache’s
help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache
feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three
Pines. “There’s power enough in Heaven,” he finishes the
quote as he contemplates the quiet village, “to cure a
sin-sick soul.” And then he gets up. And joins her.

Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy
Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper
into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter
Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an
artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey
takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very
mouth of the great St. Lawrence river. To an area so
desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it The land
God gave to Cain. And there they discover the terrible
damage done by a sin-sick soul.