Review of HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN by Louise Penny

 2.5 Stars

This is the ninth book in the Armand Gamache series and the last one for me.

The book opens with Myrna calling Gamache because her friend Constance Pineault doesn’t arrive for Christmas as she promised. The great surprise is not that she is found murdered but that she is the last of a set of world-famous quintuplets. Though Montreal is not his jurisdiction, Gamache asks to investigate. This case however soon takes a back seat to Gamache’s trying to uncover what Francoeur and his shadowy superior have planned. This latter investigation is linked to the Arnot case which has been ever-present since the first book in the series.

The case involving Constance Pineault troubled me. It almost extraneous. When the murderer is identified, the entire case is abandoned. There is no mention of whether the suspect is even arrested! What also bothered me about this plot line is its appropriation of the Dionne quintuplets’ story. I believe two of the Quints, Annette and Cécile, are still alive so Penny’s use of much of their story, especially speculation about sexual abuse, feels like more exploitation.

Then the Arnot/Francoeur plot is just bizarre and ridiculous. It reads like a comic book plot with an evil genius trying to kill a superhero (Gamache) who is trying to stop the supervillain’s plan to gain world domination. We are to believe that a conspiracy was hatched 30 years earlier? We are to believe that the collapse of some vital infrastructure caused by bombs will be blamed on years of disrepair? I’m no cyber-security expert, but I’m quite certain that the chasing of hackers through cyberspace is anything but realistic. I do know that entire files can be deleted with a couple of keystrokes; it certainly doesn’t require the time and effort indicated.

Oh and that ending! Yikes! It’s just too pat and perfect. Everyone is returned to the Gamache fold: the prodigal son returns to great celebration and is rewarded. Actually there’s also a prodigal agent who has finally learned Gamache’s lessons!

I think this is a good book for me to end my reading of this series. I’ve given the series a fair try, but have not found that the books have improved. In fact, I’m starting to find the books less realistic and too treacly. With Gamache’s retirement, I’m going to retire, though I’m well aware I’ve read only half of the books and there’s another to be released this year.

I will end with one last pet peeve about this audiobook: How could the narrator mispronounce the nickname of the famous French-Canadian hockey player Maurice Richard??!! He pronounces Rocket Richard as if it were the surname of an English king??!!!