“The Beautiful Mystery” by Louise Penny – The Evil that Monks Do

It seems sort of surprising that the province of Quebec, Canada doesn't pop up in literature often… perhaps such is the case because it was overshadowed by Canada’s image. Make no mistake, while Quebec is indeed a great place to live, it has a very violent history, not to mention that it contains the biggest Hell’s Angels Chapter and serves as the "base of operations" for the Italian mafia in Canada due to the massively important port located in Montreal. 

In any case, what I’m getting at is that Quebec is no stranger to crime and murder, and it seems Louise Penny makes it her job to showcase that in her novel titled The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel.

To give you a brief overview of the story, it begins by presenting a relatively secluded cloister of monks who have taken a vow of silence, but, ironically, sing and have actually become quite known for it. They spend their lives in the simplest ways possible, raising chickens, growing vegetables, and, of course, singing.

The monastery had a tradition of keeping its doors locked for outsiders, but it was broken for the first time to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache; the choir director was found murdered. Needless to say, the deeper Gamache gets into his investigation, the more it becomes apparent that under the harmless appearances, something foul is brewing amongst the monks.

To be fair, this is what you would expect from a run-of-the-mill murder investigation, but it goes a few notches beyond that. For instance, while the setting isn't exactly groundbreaking, it isn't seen very often as far as murder mysteries go. 

It actually forces the main character, Gamache, to make some careful considerations on how to approach those who follow their own ancient ways, those divine men of God, in order to find the murderer amongst them.

Once again, it doesn't make this boo exactly groundbreaking, but it does add an extra dimension of intrigue, the fact that we, just like Gamache, know very little about the world in which we are embarked into. All in all, it makes for a very entertaining read and I recommend it to anyone who likes old-fashioned whodunit novels with a new twist.

---

Louise Penny Personal site Louise Penny is a Canadian author who has taken to writing mystery novels where the events unfold in the province of Quebec, following the inspector Armand Gamache. Some of her better-known novels include Still Life which earned her the 2005 New Blood Dagger Award, and A Fatal Grace which was the winner of the 2007 Agatha Award.