Now, Beauvoir has gone over to the dark side: He has transferred into the command of Gamache’s arch-rival, Chief Superintendent Francoeur, a manipulator who’s never met a scruple he couldn’t ignore. For 15 years they worked together - mentor to student, father to son - until a horrific shootout destroyed their bond of trust. That’s how the light gets in.” When the story begins, many things are cracked indeed, foremost among them the once-close relationship between Gamache and Beauvoir. In “How the Light Gets In,” however, she gets her proportions just right: There’s an epic conspiracy at the center of this tale - a battle between the forces of good and evil - the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the heavenly army faced off with Lucifer’s fallen angels in “Paradise Lost.”Īs Penny explains in her poignant acknowledgments, this novel’s title is taken from a Leonard Cohen song called “Anthem”: “There’s a crack in everything. Occasionally, Penny overdoes the theologizing (as in “The Beautiful Mystery,” last summer’s somewhat sluggish Gamache adventure set in a remote monastery). Her formula for the Gamache mysteries has evolved into one part foul play, two parts morality play. Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers, Penny has been working throughout her series to tap into the spiritual dimensions of the genre. “How the Light Gets In” is the culmination of a story arc that has been developing over the most recent books happily, it is not the termination of the series.Ĭarrying forward the tradition of mystery masters such as G.K. You’ll want plenty of silence and slow time to savor “How the Light Gets In,” the ninth novel in Louise Penny’s extraordinary series starring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his troubled sidekick, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, of the Surete du Quebec. This is a mystery novel worth staying home for: Cancel those weekend plans, crank up the air conditioner and mute all electronic devices.
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