Bury Your Dead

Bury Your Dead  (Armand Gamache, #6)

 - Louise Penny

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved the previous two books in the series, and thought that it was getting better and better. But this was a disappointment in some sense. I am not partial to the Three Pines setting, so a mystery set in another place is welcome too, as long as it is a good one. But this one was just too cluttered, as the author seemed to be experimenting with several formats all at once.

There are two parallel murder mysteries, one with Gamache in Quebec, and the other with Beauvoir in Three Pines. Both of them were interesting in themselves (though the one with Gamache was understandably more involved), but they had nothing to do with each other. Flashbacks from past interspersed with the current events is a fairly common device; however, here we have the memories of the same terrible event from the perspective of both Gamache and Beauvoir. It became altogether very confusing as the reader has to reconstruct the whole event from bits and pieces through the entire length of the book.

I found the story line with Gamache set in old Quebec City particularly interesting, for its historical context and the way he solves a 200 year old mystery. Beauvoir is finally able to connect to some extent with the people in the village, indicating a personal growth. The flashbacks describe well the trauma that our two leads underwent in the harrowing incident, and the post effects physically and mentally. I love the characters, and the way the author captures the changes in their lives, relationships and thought process over time.

*** SPOILER ***

I am not convinced about Beuavoir's solution of the murder of the hermit. It is almost like magic ... one moment you have multiple suspects with plausible explanations, the next moment the murderer is pulled out of the hat. Even less convincing is his inference that the hermit was Old's father, based on the usage of a common phrase "old son".