Review of THE BRUTAL TELLING by Louise Penny

 3 Stars

This is the fifth in the Detective Inspector Armand Gamache series.  My verdict, like for the previous four books, is that it’s okay, but not great. 

The body of a stranger is found in the village bistro in Three Pines.  It’s obvious that he was murdered.  Gamache and his team arrive to investigate.  Though Olivier doesn’t admit to knowing him, the reader knows that Olivier visited the man, a hermit, who lived in a cabin in the woods surrounding the village.  When the cabin is located, it is found to be filled with very valuable antiques and collectibles.  All the clues suggest that Olivier is the killer; his lack of truthfulness only adds to his being the main suspect.

The lack of proper procedure stands out.  Gamache shares information with residents of Three Pines, any of whom could be the murderer!  He even lets people have access to evidence!  He manages to obtain a warrant to search every single house in the village.  I’m not a legal expert, but I don’t think that’s how warrants work.  Shouldn’t there be arrests of people who tampered with evidence and impeded the investigation? 

I was irritated by some other issues as well.  No one else other than Olivier is aware of the existence of the cabin?  Gabri, Olivier’s partner, is totally unaware of Olivier’s regular midnight trysts?  Gamache has to take a trip to the West Coast to figure out that the carvings, taken as a whole, tell a story?!  The Caesar code is one of the easiest to decipher and it’s misleading to state that a key word is needed; all someone has to do is to try a shift of one, two, three, etc.  There are only 25 possibilities!  Why would the hermit carve these particular words in two of the carvings; they seem to serve little purpose for the hermit.  Only for the investigators do they have significance?  The man knew he was going to be killed so left the words as clues?  Finally, a successful art dealer is so overtly homophobic?!

There are several unanswered questions in the book, including the identity of the victim.  Having looked at some reviews, it seems that the next book clarifies some of the ambiguities.  If that is indeed the case, then the author did not treat the reader fairly; this seems a cheap tactic to sell more books. 

I’m starting to feel slightly masochistic in continuing to listen to this series.  The promise that the books do get better is not being fulfilled.  I understand that this is a cozier mystery, but the number of unbelievable events is problematic.