A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Gamache, 4)

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See, I had that impulse when I read your (missed-the-entire-point-of-the-whole-damn-book) review of The Witch Elm (or, as the original British editions title it: The Wytch Elm) because you completely didn't get it.

Beauvoir often points out features of the English Canadian culture that are in stark contrast to his own French Canadian culture. Armand Gamache was his usual charming self and this time his charming wife was very much in evidence too. The subject of the sculpture, and the cause of the turmoil of the family, is first husband and father of the children, Charles Morrow.Chief Inspector Gamache is also the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec who notices everything. He didn’t think violence was the answer, encouraged Canadians to not volunteer to fight, and apparently was responsible for delaying Canada’s entry into the war. I enjoyed another encounter with Armand, learning a bit more about his family history and following his investigation, however, I found previous books a little more mysterious and, yes, interesting. But they hear terrible screams—Bean has been wandering and discovers the attic, filled with old taxidermy from the days when the inn was a hunting and fishing lodge. Because Penny’s novels aren’t just simple whodunnits, the plot and the heavy-handed themes and moral messages of the novel are entwined.

One of the Morrow children, Julia, is at the reunion for the first time in many years, having been estranged from the family. Even Gamache is not immune to being roped in, as his own family has ties to the brood, in the most obscure way.

Gamache and Reine-Marie then learn from Madame Dubois that the whole family isn’t the Finney family—they are the Morrow family. Penny’s focus on these themes is so excessive that she adversely affects the credibility of the characters and the motivation for the murder. It is the height of summer, and Armand Gamache and his wife are celebrating their wedding anniversary at an isolated, luxurious inn not far from the village of Three Pines.

As to whether the Morrows did or did not love their children, it hardly matters, as they didn’t show it in any way.I think that is really what I love most about Penny's writing; she takes the unusual and crafts it into a compelling mystery peppered with well crafted, totally believeable characters.

A Rule Against Murder is the fourth book in Louise Penny’s acclaimed Chief Inspector Gamache series.

Their stay coincides with another event, the Finney-Morrow family reunion, for which the family has taken the rest of the rooms in the lodge. His parents with their societal issues and their personal issues had certainly warped the lives of their children as we are shown time and again throughout this book. And once a year, men with names like Andrew and Douglas and Charles would leave their rail and whiskey empires, trade their spats for chewed leather moccasins and trek by canoe to the lodge on the shore of the isolated lake. Gamache and Beauvior spend a good bit of time puzzling over why Julia had her arms outstretched, as if she were hugging the statue to her. As for the vocabulary: you'd be surprised how often words like that get swapped out for the American equivalent by American publishers.