A book a year is an incredible feat, and Louise Penny continues to deliver. Sometimes, though, I wonder if the editing was really finished, and whether or not extending the deadline wouldn't improve some of her last works. This was one of them.
One of things that kept repeating in my head while listening to the audiobook, was the warning from Stephen King (or was it George Lucas, or was it Stephen King to George Lucas in reference to Jar Jar Binks) to "Kill your darlings".
If Ruth's duck never said "Fuck Fuck Fuck" again, I would be forever grateful. How long do ducks live, anyways? It feels like Rosa is getting far fetched in her survival, even if Ruth is somehow providing her optimal care, which I wouldn't think is being carried around everywhere.
How many times did she refer to "The Asshole Saint", and sometimes still needed to repeat who he was. We know! Your readers are not idiots!
I got tired of hearing about specters, even though I spent advent reading Dickens and watching different versions of The Christmas Carol. Referring to specters in the Victorian era is okay. More than once is too much in 2021!
That being said, Ms. Penny tells a nice story while making social commentary appropriate for the times.
The most annoying conclusion, but who could know how little omicron would be affected by the vaccine, was that the pandemic was over with herd immunity from vaccinations, and life returned to normal, but she gets to write fiction, so I can accept this and move on.
I did find that a Nobel Peace Prize winner was an unlikely guest in Three Pines, and was disappointed that she was played as the simpleton at first. I was honestly aggrieved by Gamache's decision to ignore his son-in-law's breech of protocol, and not upholding the morals that he dug in with in the past with much more at stake.
Unless this is going somewhere, if Gamache is no longer Gamache, I think it's time to develop other character and go somewhere other than Three Pines.
It's worth a read, but not a recommendation. 3/5
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