Wed 16 Feb 2011
Reviews by L. J. Roberts
LOUISE PENNY – Bury Your Dead. St. Martin’s Press; hardcover, September 2010; trade paperback, August 2011.
Genre: Police procedural. Leading character: Insp. Armand Gamache; 6th in series. Setting: Québec, Canada.
First Sentence: Up the stairs they raced, taking them two at a time, trying to be as quiet as possible.
Inspector Armand Gamache’s last investigation, related in The Brutal Telling, ended very badly for himself and members of his team, including his colleague Jean Guy Beauvoir. Each day Armand receives a letter from Three Pines asking why the man accused would have moved the body of the man he was convicted of killing.
He asks Jean Guy to unofficially return to Three Pines and reinvestigate the case from the assumption of the convicted man’s innocence. Armand is finding solace in the library of the Literary and Historical Society in Old Québec City until murder intervenes. Augustin Renaud, dedicated to finding the lost remains of Samuel de Champlain, founder of Québec, is found dead in the library’s basement.
As with all of her books, Penny makes me think, view things in a new and different way, and learn about things I had not known. All of this is very good. I love her vivid descriptions and wry humor. She conveys both the beauty and frigid cold of Québec City in winter, and her descriptions of food are mouth-watering. She captures how in cities with such long histories, such as Québec, one is able to sense and envision the past along with the present.
She provides an illuminating look at Québec where the English are the minority. It’s a city I’ve loved visiting but never thought about the impact of its history and politics on those who live there.
Penny’s characters are so fully realized and human. She has that rare ability which allows the reader to sense the character’s emotions, without it being maudlin or overly sentimental.
In previous books, I did not fully understand the scope and importance of Gamache’s position [Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec], but it is made clear here. Through scenes of the events of the disastrous case, you feel the weight of his responsibility and his pain.
Jean Guy has to employ Gamache’s style of investigative techniques, which gives him a new understanding of his boss. I appreciate how Penny introduces us to new characters yet reacquaints us with our favorite characters from the previous books as well.
Each thread of the triple-threaded plot is gripping and stands on its own yet, as with real life, they work well together and provide us greater insight to the characters. I did have an issue with the logic behind one of the plot threads, and a stepping-away from the impact of another, but I am willing to almost forgive those against the strengths of the rest of the book.
Penny does leave a fourth, smaller thread dangling for another book, but it’s not the cliff-hanger ending several authors are now employing which I find cheap and unnecessary from a good author. Thank you, Ms. Penny, for not doing that yet always leave us wanting the next book — now.
While her books are, at their core, mysteries, and very good ones, there are layers beyond that and a wisdom brought forth through her characters that I admire. Gamache’s code for the four sentences which lead to wisdom: “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don’t know.†are worth embracing.
Penny is one of the best authors of today and one I recommend to anyone without hesitation.
Rating: Very Good Plus.
February 17th, 2011 at 10:24 am
About time for me to leave my opinion of Louise Penny who is, IMAO, hands down the leading contender for the “Grand Mistress of Mystery” for the 21st century. She is the only one of this brand of new “cozy” (ugh) writers who truly loves the traditional detective story AND understands the construction of one and the melding of character and plot. So what if she tends to get a little too sentimental (something that is always denigrated in any piece of fiction or cinema in our tough and hardened times)? So what if some of it is cutesy (the pet duck of the embittered poet)? I’d say there other idiosyncratic features in the same subgenre by far lesser writers that about hundred times more annoying and juvenile. She always delivers an unusual plot, she always delivers complicated characters. No one is ever truly good or thoroughly bad. Her outcast characters often have heroic streaks. Her characters who appear to be friendly smiling neighbors often have some darker streak lurking benath the surface. Look who the murderer turned out to be in The Brutal Telling! That’s gutsy for a writer who created a quaint Canadian village with “adorable” and “lovable” characters. As an added bonus I learn a lot about contemporary poetry reading any one of her books.
Apart from all that she is one of the most decent and compassionate and considerate mystery writers around. She is never condescending to or dismissive of her readers. I didn’t even know her and when I sent her an email about how impressed I was with her first book she answered me within 2 minutes! I was astonished. I rarely ever get a response as personal as the one I got from Louise Penny.
She deserves every one of those awards she’s won and continues to be recognized with nominations for her books year after year. She certainly is in the record books for this century.
February 17th, 2011 at 10:38 am
I cannot explain why it is that I have not read any of Louise Penny’s books. Not yet, I hasten to add, because everyone I know who’s who read one has told me how great they are.
This review by LJ and your comment, John, are going to be the combined tipping point that’s going to get me over the edge. As soon as I finish the second Stieg Larsson book, still only halfway through, I’m going to choose one by Louise Penny next.
As far as calling her books “cozy,” from what I’ve read about them, which has been quite a bit, I think she might fit into the category, but that she’s also as cozy as Agatha Christie’s books are.
Which is to say they may be cozy-like on the surface, but not so not very deep down underneath.
February 17th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
I have read “cozy” defined as any mystery where the crime happens off stage.
I never really think of Agatha Christie in connection with the modern “cozy”. Christie’s will always be labeled by me as Classic Mystery or British drawing room or softboiled. The modern Cozy is usually more a romantic comedy mystery with more attention paid to the romance and sex than the mystery and violence.
February 17th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
I’m with you, Michael, regarding Agatha Christie, but like it or not, she’s the author most people think of when the subject of “cozy” mystery comes up.
For example, take the Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_mystery
The first author, or rather character, they use to illustrate a cozy mystery is Miss Marple.
Their third example is Jessica Fletcher. I’d go along with that, and the fourth are the “Cat Who” books. Undeniably so.
I skipped the second example, or Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, from British TV, which I’ve never seen, but they’re probably right.
Still, it’s Miss Marple who’s listed as Number One.
February 18th, 2011 at 2:39 am
It’s only the setting in Christie that is cozy, nothing else is. I’m not really sure you can label a writer as cozy when the most likely suspect in any book is usually the couple that is most in love and with whom the reader most identifies or sympathises with — until we find out what they are up to.
If ever it was possible, Christie is savagely cozy.
February 18th, 2011 at 11:36 am
Steve –
L J does not mention it but this is a direct sequel to The Brutal Telling and should not be read without reading the other book first. I suggest any of the first three books for anyone’s entry in the world of Three Pines.
As for my take on the term “cozy” – I have always felt that it derived from the traditional English village mystery where the body is found in a library, the sleuth is an amateur, and the characters are always drinking tea from a pot covered with a cozy – or in the British spelling cosy. This has always made the most sense to me. It follows logically that Jane Marple comes up as the first example in that wikipedia article. But then consider the source.
“Cozy” has since evolved (or I think devolved) into this new modern category that Michael described in his comment. The mass market paperback cozy is usually a gimmicky story aimed at almost exclusively female audience, a kind of Harlequin romance with murders, recipes, knitting patterns and what have you. The few I made the mistake of reading were badly clued (if even an attempt was made at that), have transparent plots informed of bad TV and worse popular fiction and are loaded with stock characters. I have never heard of this offstage murder bit as being part of the criteria for a cozy. Most of the time it’s true that someone stumbles on a corpse in an odd location but it’s not always the case. Where did that come from I wonder?
I know that Penny is burdened with this cozy label because her microcosm of Three Pines is very similar to the traditional English village of the Golden Age whodunits and its inhabitants are quirky and “lovable”, but she the books are not cozy in atmosphere, tone or style at all. In one book the victim is grotesquely electrocuted at a curling match. It’s not done for laughs either. The murders in all her books, in fact, are violent and nasty – it’s part of her world view in telling a story of crime. Plus she does not employ an amateur detective, she has an entire police squadron working to solve the crime. It’s not pretty and it’s not cute when someone kills another person. And that alone raises her several notches above the others whose “cozy” books make light of murder and violent crime and present crime solving as some kind of fun hobby like cross stitching or baking novelty cookies.
February 18th, 2011 at 3:11 pm
J.F. I went through a period where I read many of the modern cozy paperbacks. Some are quite good if you go in knowing the mystery is a minor plot device and the series is about the characters. I may get around to reviewing a couple. I really enjoyed The Art Lovers series by Hailey Lind (Julie Goodson-Lawes and Carolyn J. Lawes) and “Murder With Peacocks” by Donna Andrews. But the formula gets redundant after awhile, but I think the same for the old style puzzle murders (perhaps another common point to link them under cozy.
Speaking of the puzzle murders, your last thought about how the modern cozy makes light of murder, what did you think about the BBC-TV version of SHERLOCK having Holmes dance with delight that the game was on when he learned of another murder?
February 18th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
I like Benedict Cumberbatch in that revamped Sherlock. Holmes is Holmes no matter when the period. I don’t think he’s making light of murder in that context. He gets off on the game. It’s his adrenline rush. His addiction high. His dance of delight – literally. Call it what you will.
And I’m not saying comedy in detective novels or mysteries doesn’t have its place. If the entire work is devoted to absurdity then I say go for it. I think Craig Rice’s books are surreal wonders. Harry Stephen Keeler is a madcap genuius despite his syntax and sentence structure problems. And I just discovered the Leonidas Witherall books by Alice Tilton which are like Howard Hawks screwball movies with detection (well just a tad of detection).
Obviously I am biased about a certain type of cozy mystery. Example: I have a suspicion I would hate Pamela Branch’s books based on what I’ve read about them. My dislikes bring out the the worst in me. My Waldo Lydecker side comes out and then comes the goose quill dipped in venom. Just keep the shotgun away from me.
February 18th, 2011 at 11:12 pm
The modern cozy is less cozy than it is domestic — it tends to be about cats, quilts, tea shops, bookshops, and almost everything but murder, and there is a light attitude toward murder, but that doesn’t bother me as I’ve always liked humorous mysteries (John, the Leonidas Witherall books are great fun — check out some of the Asey Mayo mysteries she wrote as Phoebe Atwood Taylor too).
But my real problem with the genre is something John hits on — the bad TV plots. Because what most of these books remind me of are bad episodes of MURDER SHE WROTE, the genre stripped down to its barest bones and what too often passes for originality on the tube (and what is acceptable for an episode of a television show isn’t always equally acceptable as a novel).
I recently read one by Cleo Coyle writing as Alice Kimberly, THE GHOST AND THE DEAD MAN’s LIBRARY, and it reads like an episode of a ‘high concept’ television series.
The sleuth is the owner of a bookstore that is haunted by a 1940’s type private eye’s ghost and it was all so cute as to make my teeth hurt.
The writing isn’t bad, and the plot wasn’t terrible, but the private eye was a walking collection of cliches (I was reminded of the parodies Robert Lansing played on SIMON & SIMON and Eugene Roche on MAGNUM P.I., only without the charm of those two actors, and going on endlessly), and I kept waiting for the commercial breaks.
That said, there is a nice touch when she trips a suspect up (literally) over a display of P.D. James latest bestseller.
My problem with most modern cozys is less to do with the writing or even the setups, than the second hand television feel of so many of them — this one sounds exactly like some hack television writer’s idea to combine THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR with MURDER SHE WROTE and throw in a so called hard boiled eye — problem is the eye in this case is only a collection of tired old cliches, the mystery (involving a collection of the works of Edgar Allan Poe that runs to 13 volumes — you can put every word he ever wrote in one thick book) is contrived, and a clue that was only a little less lame than Hephaestus rounds out the complaints.
God knows the classic detective novel was contrived, but it was seldom pat, and the good ones displayed real cleverness — even occassional depth and social conciousness. All but a few cozys I’ve read (and those were more screwball than cozy)share these problems — they are Harlequin romances with a bit of murder thrown in. Too many of them make Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys look like Dashiell Hammett.
I wouldn’t mind if a cat or a hamster, a ghost or a vampire was the detective if the writing was good and the plotting intelligent. Sadly most of the cozy school has the feel of life experienced through a flat screen television. You don’t have the feeling of reading about real people, but instead feel as if at the end of the book they take off their make up and go home like actors on a sit com (cozy’s can be done well — Dorothy Cannell’s Mrs. Pollifax is a sort of cozy spy and delightful).
I can see where for many that makes a painless and even enjoyable form of escapist reading, and my only real complaint is that it has become so dominant it crowds almost everything else out.
But I do think what separated the classic cozy (Miss Marple) from the modern cozy is that the classic form as employed by Christie had a real sense of evil and was trying to juxtapose the bland appearance of domesticity with the real presence of human evil while modern cozy’s too often merely find murder cute, and an excuse for tiresome flights of domestic cuteness multiplied to a level where you half expect the Brady or the Partridge families to show up as the sleuths.