This is one of the best books in the series! Now that I am caught up...I have to wait a year for the next book to come out and return to one of my favorite spots, with my favorite characters, in Three Pines.

4.5 starsWhy did I wait two years to read this book?! Sure, some of the books prior to this one were a little lackluster, and the unfortunately necessary change in audiobook narrator had me hesitant to continue on with this series. But obviously Louise Penny still has some aces up her sleeve. Case in point: this book.It starts out a little slow, but trust the process. I’ll definitely read the next book in this series sooner than later now that my love for this series has been revived.

"Things are strongest where they're broken," said Commander Gamache, his voice deep and calm and certain.I must tell you.I don't know where the magnitude of strength came from that propelled Louise Penny to write this most beautiful of life sonnets to her husband, Michael. She penned A Great Reckoning while her husband battled dementia. "Dementia is a marauder, a thief. But every hole it drills has been filled by our friends. By practical help and emotional support."And her beloved character of

By the time you get to the 12th novel in a series I often find myself losing interest and that the stories just aren't as good as they were. Not with this series. If anything the series seems to get stronger. I feel like I know the characters and they could be friends. Louise Penny has a superb gift for describing scenes and people so that you feel like you are right there ... enjoying the food, sitting in front of a fire, and are part of the conversation. These are stories of relationships and

A new Louise Penny novel is like getting together with a group of old friends. She paints her characters so well that you feel you know them as real people. In this latest book in the series, Armand has taken over the commander position of the Surete Academie. As with all her books, the action is as much interior, in thought, as it is external. We are witness to all Armand’s decisions, some quite risky, to bring the Academy out of the quagmire. Penny introduces us to several students, Amelia in

5★ Shining so brightly!While the author was writing this 12th book in her Inspector Gamache series her husband was in the last stages of Alzheimer’s disease and passed away shortly after its publication. In the acknowledgements she writes tenderly and lovingly about him and the many friends, neighbors, and colleagues whose help and emotional support were invaluable to her. That list included “Armand, Reine-Marie, Clara, Myrna, Gabri, Ruth, et al.” Those of us who love this series can understand

3.5*. Armand Gamache has recently taken over as the commander of the Sûreté Academy for the training of new cadets. He begins his new position by firing many of the inferior and no doubt corrupt Professors. But he keeps one on, the one suspected of fraud, kickbacks, and an unorthodox way of training the new cadets. Gamache is desperate to discover the evidence he needs to put this Professor behind bars for a very long time However, things rarely go as planned and once a murder takes place everyt...

I had a really good time on our annual date, Armand. Either I'm old enough to find the familiar uplifting and comforting or maybe you're just really good at keeping things fresh and interesting. Whatever it is, this was definitely one of our best dates. I hope Reine Marie isn't too jealous...At the end of every August, my consolation for seeing the end of the summer is that Louise Penny publishes a new mystery featuring Armand Gamache and the village of Three Pines. I love the series. I love the...

It is always terrific to return to Three Pines, the neighbourly if eccentric cast and catch up with Armande Gamache and his family. Louise Penny has created a unique series, close to being "cozy" and driven by the Inspector's keen intelligence and compassionate soul. At the same time, the mysteries are intense and multi-layered, with unexpected solutions. In the latest book in the series, Armande Gamache has accepted a job with the Police Training Academy. Le Sûreté has recovered from the corrup...

It's always wonderful to be back with the somewhat eccentric folk of Three Pines and it was good to see Armand Gamache recovered and ready to take on a new challenge. He has taken the position of Commander of the Sûreté Academy determined to stamp out the cruelty he has seen in it's more recent police graduates. He makes a few risky decisions in which staff to sack and who to recruit, which backfires somewhat when there is a murder. Back in Three Pines, an unusual map has been found in the walls...

EVERY FREAKIN' ONE OF HER BOOKS I start out enjoying the characters and the tension and end up face to face with a completely unbelievable situation. And that damn old poet and her duck. And that stupid fairy-tale village. ARRRGGGGHHHH. By now I should know better.

First Sentence: Armand Gamache sat in the little room and closed the dossier with care, squeezing it shut, trapping the words inside.No longer the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Quebec, Armand Gamache has finally decided on his next position, and the people with whom he wants to work. It's a position where he feels he can made a difference and a correction to something gone very wrong. When one person dies, the situation becomes even more dire then simply uncovering the facts behind the crim...

Robert Bathurst does a great job of narrating Louise Penny's A Great Reckoning, #12 in The Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series.This is only my second Louise Penny and I have to admit to being enamoured by Gamache's steely yet gentle personality, his sense of honour.Central to this story is an old orienteering map discovered hidden in the wall of the old Bistro at Three Pines, a town that appears on no map other than this one. This tale of murder is intricately wound with false trails and leads...

In my review of the previous book in this series I wished that Armand Gamache would soon come out of retirement and get back to what he is really good at - taking charge and solving crimes. I got my wish and after sifting through a number of offers for very senior positions Gamache chooses one nearest to his own heart as Commander of the Surete Academy.Action in the book is divided between Three Pines and the Academy which made me happy. There is an interesting twist when Gamache himself is susp...

This is a character driven mystery crime novel which engages the reader effortlessly. Louise Penny returns to Three Pines, and the eccentric, wonderful and comical characters that reside there. Armand Gamache, after almost dying in his efforts to cleanse the dirty cops in the Quebec Surete, has a new challenge in his life. He is the Commander of the Surete Training School for which his wife Reine-Marie is grateful as she imagines he will be safe. However, Armand's unenviable task is to root out

To say she has done it again is an understatement. I very seldom rate mysteries five stars but in this case it is well deserved. Gamache accepts a job as the head of the Surete, the school where cadets train. But why and what does he hope to accomplish there? Some of the most well known players from previous books return. There is a murder and a map, a new cadet with ties to Gamache. Three Pines is featured prominently in this one, the characters, the church. Old mystery, new mystery. Louise Pen...

I have read the previous 11 Armand Gamache books, and they all led to the events and revelations in this, the 12th. I felt like I was coming home as I started the book. I wanted to go slow and immerse myself in Three Pines, and I was successful until I had to know the secrets and I couldn't stop reading. Many people talk about certain books as if they were peeling away layers of an onion. To me, this story was like a rose, opening petal by petal. Armand has found a new purpose as the Commander o...

Louise Penny shows her creative side in reimagining the central characters in her well-established Canadian police procedural series, taking the reader on a mysterious journey in which only Armand Gamache could find himself. Gamache has decided that a life of retirement might not yet be for him. While huddled around a pile of paperwork, the former Chief Inspector has to make the final decisions on new admission to the Sûreté du Québec Police Academy. Having accepted the role of the academy’s com...

4.5★“They stomped their feet, brushed wet snow off their coats, and slapped their hats against their legs. It was a singular Québec jig learned in the womb.”Hardly unique, but typical of the kind of scene readers are so familiar with in Three Pines, the village in Québec that doesn’t exist in real life, or even on Canadian maps in the series. In this novel, we learn what happened to it, as well as to a village first called Roof Trusses. That’s right. Roof Trusses.Gamache is now Commander of the

Every time I read a title in this series, I think how could it possibly be better than the last, and yet it is. Penny writes with a depth of complexity that reaches out and draws the reader in. In this latest title Gamache has taken his quest to clean up police corruption to its very beginning, the police academy. Where better to stop corruption than to prevent it from starting. It soon becomes clear that it won't be an easy task, old foes and forces are still at work. When murder arrives at the...