I think ten years ago I would have fallen in love with this series, because the lies it tells about doing good and doing evil are told in such pretty prose, with all the symbols of cosiness -- wood fires and snowfall, old friends gathering around candlelit tables, poetry and music and books.

She's there to be furniture for the plot, demonstrating CC's narcissism and Gamache's compassion, but never existing a human being in her own right.

He got out of the car and stared down at the village, each home glowing with warm and beckoning light, promising protection against a world sometimes too cold. This may be old, but I am just reading it – I understood why they attempted suicide – it was to take the fall for Crie, but there are several loose ends in this book, such as how Cree could possibly purchase the niacin, and make this elaborate plan, not knowing about the boots and set up and traditions. In the golden age of classic murder mysteries, the Detection Club, whose founders included Dorothy L. Anyone with a single brain cell would see jumper cables clipped to a metal chair and their alarm bells would deafen everybody in the town. In Louise’s books I am always stopping to admire wonderful images or jokes or observations (or descriptions of food!

The psychological analysis is all wrong; people don’t act like this, even if they are completely mean. I want to believe the series does in fact get better but it will probably take me quite a while to pick up the next book.

Although Louise Penny’s novels feature some rather nasty murders, I would classify her Inspector Gamache murder mysteries as cosy crime, especially as there are some lovely descriptions of situation and setting and some wonderful descriptions of food(! I preferred this story to the first DCI Gamache book (where I guessed the identity of the murderer) but I was wrong-footed more than once with this particular story and, therefore, enjoyed it all the more.

And it strikes me that, while certainly there would be exceptions to the rule, most of the people who enjoy hanging out in Scudder's New York aren't going to want to spend a lot of time in Gamache's Three Pines, and vice-versa.De boeken staan op zichzelf, maar in volgorde gelezen ontplooien de karakters zich door de tijd heen en mis je ook toespelingen naar voorgaande boeken niet.