Bury Your Dead

Other reviews say it, but it bears repeating. This is the best yet, yet at times emotionally hard to read. Over the series I have wanted to pack up and move to Three Pines. I have been to Carnaval in Quebec City a few times–it’s not far from where I live in Maine. I want to play Ruth in the movie version. Penny gets personalities in all their richness and complexity. I feel like I know these people. And this installment comes along and you have to watch as these “friends” work through considerable and various pain. One must go on to the next one…

I love Louise Penny books and have read them in sequence. This is the first one I struggled to finish. The story line involving Canadian history just got a bit tedious. Being American, I knew nothing of the history of Quebec. Although I’m interested in history in general, it just got a bit hard to slog through the long story line. Ms Penny usually has multiple story lines and I enjoyed the secondary story involving Oliver’s guilt or innocence. I will continue to work my way through the rest of these wonderful books since I am hooked on her writing. I believe her to be an extremely skilled writer with a keen sense of humor. If you want to skip one of her series of Gamache novels…this would be the one.

Louise Penny is one of my favorite mystery writers and Chief Inspector Gamache is a compelling and wonderful character. Bury Your Dead was a good but not great read for me. This is because Penny weaves 3 different mysteries into the book. I would have preferred one of them–the one to do with a tragic loss for the Chief Inspector–as its own book. As written, it merely served to annoy me because Penny spent pages hinting at the tragedy and rolling it out in excruciatingly minimalist recollections by the characters. The result was that I felt distanced from the character’s emotions and found myself skimming those sections. The central mystery was fine but was overshadowed by having these two others get in its way.

It is a fact that no one knows where Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec and Canada, is buried. No one really knows what he looked like. But as the founder of the first colony in Canada (or New France), Champlain has remained a powerful figure in Canadian politics, and Quebec separatism.

And it is these facts about Champlain that form the heart of Louise Pennys Bury Your Dead, the sixth Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery.

Im not sure how Penny does it, but each of these Gamache mysteries is better than the one before it. Bury Your Dead is downright dazzling; Penny tells the story of four mysteries simultaneously and successfully pulls it off.

The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec is something of an anomaly. It is a library and historical society, but it is an Anglo society in the heart of Old Quebec. Its board is mostly older men and women, and the library is generally a quiet place, deliberately maintaining something of a low profile.

The body of an amateur archaeologist is found in the societys dirt-floor basement. Hes been bludgeoned with a shovel. This particular archaeologist had a mania for finding the burial place of Champlain, and has had a reputation for some spectacular failures.

Champlain is one mystery; the murder is the second. The third is what Chief Inspector Gamache of the Quebec Surete is doing, spending time with his old boss. And it isnt a simple friendly visit. Gamache is recovering from a police operation that went very badly. During a rutine traffic stop, a policeman had been killed and a young officer, one of Gamaches own, taken prisoner. And all we know at the beginning is that Gamache is recovering, including from his own physical wounds.

Gamaches right-0hand man, Detective Jean-Guy Bouvier, is also recovering from his physical wounds. He is in the village of Three Pines, sent there by Gamache, to see if they arrested the wrong man for murder, the story of The Brutal Telling. The man was convicted and sent to prison. But Gamache knows the mistakes he made with the police operation, and he knows a mistake may have been made in Three Pines.

Four mysteries in all where Champlain is buried; the murder in the societys basement; the police operation gone badly; and the case in Three Pines. Not all are connected, and Penny masterfully unfolds and weaves together each of them. Its history, mystery, police procedure, and the uncovering of human emotions and passions all rolled into one overall story.

And its an excellent read.

Of the many Inspector Gamache books I have read this is my favorite . I can’t really explain why because it is so sad but yet finally, painfully, slowly it becomes uplifting and satisfying. I think seeing my favorite characters vulnerable and in such physical and emotional pain made me want to read slower. I actually re-read some pages as I just couldn’t believe what I was reading. It’s truly a great book, one I won’t forget.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member