Dead Cold by
Louise Penny
hbk out October 06
Published by Headline
at £19.99
Louise Penny is well-known for her excellent debut novel "Still Life" which a year or
two ago won the CWA New Blood Dagger and a Canadian First Novel Award.
For this follow-up, she again returns to the little French-Canadian village of Three
Pines in Quebec, with most of the same characters, especially Surete Chief-Inspector
Armand Gamache, who is in danger of turning into a latter-day Hercule Poirot.
A poisonous woman, CC de Poitiers, has bought the old house in which deadly events
took place in the previous book, which is alluded to often, but never explained in this
one. She ends up at Christmas dead in bizarre circumstances, in that whilst watching a
curling game on a local frozen lake, she is fatally electrocuted!
Gamache and his assistants arrive from Montreal and are comfortably accommodated
in the local B&B, though towards the end of the book they get snowed in, with
horrific descriptions of a Quebec winter, with temperatures down to minus thirty. A
strange trio of old ladies dominate much of the action, though some of it takes place
back in Montreal, where a grimy old bag-lady gets strangled in an apparently
unconnected case.
The writing is superb and the descriptions of Canadian village life and its lively
characters bring it all to life. Gamache is his usual kindly, perceptive, philosophical
and astute self, with uncanny insights into the psyche of his suspects and witnesses.
Perhaps the emotional content of some of the writing is a little over the top here and
there, but so what – this is meant to be an entertaining novel. The mechanics of the
murder also stretch credulity to the limit, but they are certainly unique! The person
'whodunnit' is fairly obvious from early on, but that does not detract from the
enjoyment of the story.
One slight criticism is linked to the difficulties of all serial writers, in that it is unwise
to let the cat out of the bag relating to previous books – and replaying material from
those previous books in the present one. Here we have frequent obscure allusions to
the 'Arnot case' with no explanation as to what it was, until some hints right at the
end, which are in danger of spoiling the surprise of her previous novel, if one has not
read it already – and no explanation whatsoever as to why two of his junior assistants
seem to be covertly plotting against him. Obviously, Ms Penny is stocking up
ammunition for her next book, when perhaps all will be made clear, but it doesn't
really work well in this one.
However, a magnificent read, with full marks for inventiveness and sheer descriptive
power.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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Dead Cold by
Louise Penny
