Glass Houses: A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel)
1 journaler for this copy...
This is a hardcover book which my wonderful husband gave me for Christmas 2018.
Another great book from Louise Penny and it deals with a very real problem, the opiod crisis. Good for her for taking on that conundrum and fitting it into the life of the people of Three Pines. I didn't know how Gamache was going to solve this case right up until the last few pages.
Just after Hallowe'en a robed and masked figure took up residence in Three Pines. It didn't speak or move just stood on the village green and stared at the bistro. A journalist staying in the B and B with his wife and two friends told Gamache that it was a cobrador. The concept of the cobrador was Spanish; there a cobrador del frac follows a person who owes money and thus shames the debtor into paying. According to the journalist this modern debt collector is based upon an older entity that followed a person who had committed some grievous wrong until the wrong was righted or at least an apology was made. Everyone in the village feels the chill of the cobrador's presence and Gamache worries about what will occur. No one is sure who the target is and everyone worries that some secret from their past is the reason the cobrador has turned up. Then, after appearing for a few days, the cobrador disappears and Gamache, who is now the head of the Surete, goes to work in Montreal. He has to find a way to stem the rising crime statistics and the opiod drug trade that fuels them. He has only been at work for a few hours when he gets a call from his wife, Reine-Marie, who has found the cobrador dead in the basement of the village church. Now there is a murderer to catch and a mystery to solve, all while trying to work against the drug cartels. Or maybe there is a link between these issues? Read the book.
The action switches back and forth from November of one year and July of the following year. In July Gamache is testifying at a trial in Montreal during a heat wave. It is a trial of the person who killed the cobrador but we don't learn who the accused is until the end of the book and we don't even learn the identity of the victim until quite far along. Quite a bit of description deals with how hot it is in Montreal and especially how unbearable the courtroom is because the air conditioning isn't working. I suppose that Quebec might schedule major cases during the summer but here in Manitoba such cases are heard either at the Spring or Fall Assizes. Another point that bothered me was the length of time between the offence and the trial: it usually takes much longer than nine months for a murder trial to commence. In fact, there is a direction from the Supreme Court of Canada that murder trials should take place no more than thirty months after the offence which gives an idea of the usual length. I understand that this is fiction and sometimes the story must alter facts but I would have thought if Penny was doing this she would have discussed it in her afterwords. A small niggle but one that prevents me from rating this book as high as others.
Just after Hallowe'en a robed and masked figure took up residence in Three Pines. It didn't speak or move just stood on the village green and stared at the bistro. A journalist staying in the B and B with his wife and two friends told Gamache that it was a cobrador. The concept of the cobrador was Spanish; there a cobrador del frac follows a person who owes money and thus shames the debtor into paying. According to the journalist this modern debt collector is based upon an older entity that followed a person who had committed some grievous wrong until the wrong was righted or at least an apology was made. Everyone in the village feels the chill of the cobrador's presence and Gamache worries about what will occur. No one is sure who the target is and everyone worries that some secret from their past is the reason the cobrador has turned up. Then, after appearing for a few days, the cobrador disappears and Gamache, who is now the head of the Surete, goes to work in Montreal. He has to find a way to stem the rising crime statistics and the opiod drug trade that fuels them. He has only been at work for a few hours when he gets a call from his wife, Reine-Marie, who has found the cobrador dead in the basement of the village church. Now there is a murderer to catch and a mystery to solve, all while trying to work against the drug cartels. Or maybe there is a link between these issues? Read the book.
The action switches back and forth from November of one year and July of the following year. In July Gamache is testifying at a trial in Montreal during a heat wave. It is a trial of the person who killed the cobrador but we don't learn who the accused is until the end of the book and we don't even learn the identity of the victim until quite far along. Quite a bit of description deals with how hot it is in Montreal and especially how unbearable the courtroom is because the air conditioning isn't working. I suppose that Quebec might schedule major cases during the summer but here in Manitoba such cases are heard either at the Spring or Fall Assizes. Another point that bothered me was the length of time between the offence and the trial: it usually takes much longer than nine months for a murder trial to commence. In fact, there is a direction from the Supreme Court of Canada that murder trials should take place no more than thirty months after the offence which gives an idea of the usual length. I understand that this is fiction and sometimes the story must alter facts but I would have thought if Penny was doing this she would have discussed it in her afterwords. A small niggle but one that prevents me from rating this book as high as others.
