The Greeks gave us nine muses but neglected to provide one for painting. Talk of Peter’s talent in time leads to an odd debate about the possibility of a 10th muse. Penny’s novels have often reflected her love of art, and although this one’s formal plot concerns the search for a missing painter, its larger subject is how artists can pursue greatness - or, in the alternative, lose their souls. Might Peter, wherever he was, be seeking new artistic heights? Then he starts to see virtues in the new paintings. At first, Gamache calls these ugly, “a dog’s breakfast,” much unlike Peter’s more conventional past work. They obtain some strange abstract paintings that Peter sent back from his travels. He sets out, along with Clara and two other friends, to question an art professor in Toronto who taught Peter years earlier. By checking Peter’s credit-card use, Gamache tracks the painter to Europe and back to Canada, but then the trail goes cold. Gamache, unable to refuse a troubled friend, reluctantly agrees to lead a search. That deadline has come and gone with no sign of the wayward husband. Peter, unable to handle her late-blooming success, left their home but agreed to return in a year to discuss their uncertain situation. We learned in “A Trick of the Light” that Clara and her husband, Peter, are both painters, but as they neared age 50, her work suddenly overshadowed his. Soon, of course, the outer world intrudes on this paradise, thanks to their friend Clara Morrow. At dusk, tea lamps are lit, “so that it looked like large fireflies had settled in for the evening.” Inside, a handsome bouquet proves to be mostly made of weeds: purple loosestrife, bishop’s weed and “bindweed that mimicked morning glory.” Reine-Marie seats guests on the lawn in Adirondack chairs and offers them white wine and smoked trout on rye. Their house, made of white clapboard, has a wide veranda that faces the village green. In an early scene, Penny sketches the amenities of a gathering at Chez Gamache. He wants nothing more than to enjoy his family and friends in their idyllic village. He’s recovering from injuries suffered in a recent case that left him with both physical and spiritual damage. “The Long Way Home,” like all Penny’s novels, features Armand Gamache, the longtime chief inspector of the Surete de Quebec who is now retired and living with his wife, Reine-Marie, in their beloved village of Three Pines, outside Montreal. Seen together, Penny and French demonstrate how sophisticated today’s best crime fiction can be - and how this evolving genre can appeal to a far larger audience than the hard-boiled tales of yesteryear. Penny’s novels feature a male detective, but she surrounds him with interesting women French sets her new novel in an exclusive Dublin girls’ school and takes us painfully deep into the lives, frustrations and sorrows of 16-year-old girls. Both, I think, also offer special appeal to women readers. Both are writing about detectives and murder investigations, but in addition to the basic, virtually primal appeal of a good mystery, both add elegant prose and psychological depth. ![]() It’s thus been gratifying of late to see two of today’s most-talented crime writers ascend the lists: Tana French with her fifth novel, “The Secret Place,” and Louise Penny with her 10th, “The Long Way Home.” ( Audio clip here.)īoth writers have won huge followings in this country even though they live and set their novels elsewhere: Penny’s in her native Canada and the American-born French in her adopted Ireland. Given all the junk that dominates the fiction bestseller lists, it’s always a pleasure to discover really good novelists there.
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