A World of Curiosities: A Novel

by Louise Penny

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

We confess, we got a little spoiled in 2021 with the release of not one but TWO Penny penned books. A year is complete when we know we are going to spend some time with Armand Gamache. A World of Curiosities continues Penny’s empathetic investigation into the human condition. We are in good hands with Armand Gamache and the residents of Three Pines.

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns in the eighteenth book in #1 New York Times bestseller Louise Penny's beloved series.

It’s spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge.

But something has.

As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators’ lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village of Three Pines.

But to what end?

Gamache and Beauvoir’s memories of that tragic case, the one that first brought them together, come rushing back. Did their mother’s murder hurt them beyond repair? Have those terrible wounds, buried for decades, festered and are now about to erupt?

As Chief Inspector Gamache works to uncover answers, his alarm grows when a letter written by a long dead stone mason is discovered. In it the man describes his terror when bricking up an attic room somewhere in the village. Every word of the 160-year-old letter is filled with dread. When the room is found, the villagers decide to open it up.

As the bricks are removed, Gamache, Beauvoir and the villagers discover a world of curiosities. But the head of homicide soon realizes there’s more in that room than meets the eye. There are puzzles within puzzles, and hidden messages warning of mayhem and revenge.

In unsealing that room, an old enemy is released into their world. Into their lives. And into the very heart of Armand Gamache’s home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250145314
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/29/2022
Series:	Chief Inspector Gamache Series , #18
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	138
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

LOUISE PENNY is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Globe and Mail bestselling series of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels, and coauthor with Hillary Rodham Clinton of the #1 New York Times bestselling thriller State of Terror. She has won numerous awards, including a CWA Dagger and the Agatha Award (eight times), and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. In 2017, she received the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian culture. Louise lives in a small village south of Montréal.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/12/2022

Bestseller Penny’s virtuoso 18th novel featuring Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Québec Sûreté (after 2021’s The Madness of Crowds) blends nuanced characterization with nail-biting suspense. Siblings Fiona and Sam Arsenault return to Three Pines more than a decade after Gamache investigated the bludgeoning murder of their mother, Clotilde. His inquiry revealed that Clotilde had prostituted her children, then 13 and 10, at the time of the killing. During the case, he met his future number two and son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who came to a different conclusion than his own. Gamache stayed involved in Fiona’s life, even aiding her graduate studies in engineering. The Arsenaults’ arrival coincides with several murders, which seem connected to an unusual painting found concealed in a hidden room in Three Pines. It first appears to be a duplicate of The Paston Treasure, a cryptic 17th-century assemblage of items known as A World of Curiosities, but anachronistic elements, such as a digital watch, have been added. Penny adds crucial details about Gamache’s backstory and satisfactorily resolves a plotline tease from earlier in the series. This tale of forgiveness and redemption will resonate with many. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Company. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Outstanding Praise for A World of Curiosities

ONE OF WASHINGTON POST'S BEST MYSTERIES AND THRILLERS OF 2022
ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE'S BEST FALL BOOKS
ONE OF AARP'S BEST FALL BOOKS
ONE OF CRIMEREADS' MOST ANTICIPATED FALL BOOKS
ONE OF BARNES & NOBLE'S BEST BOOKS OF 2022
ONE OF BUSTLE'S MOST ANTICIPATED NOVEMBER 2022 BOOKS

“Simply outstanding… Penny’s gift for intelligent and transcendent storytelling delivers light, bringing themes of forgiveness and redemption to society’s darker moments.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Penny delves into the nature of evil, sensitively exploring the impact of the dreadful events she describes while bringing a warmth and humanity to her disparate cast of characters that, unusually for a crime novel, leaves you feeling better about the world once you’ve finished.”—The Guardian

“Another superb achievement… Penny weaves together all these narratives—the series of modern-day killings, the decade-old bludgeoning murder and the haunting artwork that has remained shrouded in mystery across the centuries—with a master’s deft hand.” —BookPage (starred review)

“For Penny, the novel is a narrative tour de force, drawing brilliantly on some dark moments in Québec history and leading Gamache and the residents of Three Pines to a hard-won, thoroughly unsentimental recognition that forgiveness is our most powerful magic.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Virtuoso… blends nuanced characterization with nail-biting suspense…This tale of forgiveness and redemption will resonate with many.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Penny’s 18th Gamache novel is intense as the detective digs deep into his own fears. The darkness in this intricately plotted story forces readers to search for contrasting moments of hope.” —Library Journal (starred review, and Pick of the Month)

From the Publisher

★ 11/01/2022

In 1989, a young Armand Gamache was on the scene of a mass slaying when 14 women were killed at Montreal's École Polytechnique. It changed his life and propelled him into a career in homicide. Ten years later, while investigating Clotilde Arsenault's murder, Gamache recruited an angry, undisciplined officer, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Both events trigger current events in 2019. Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, took Clotilde's daughter, Fiona, under their wing, although she and her brother, Sam, were involved in their mother's death. After Fiona graduates from the École Polytechnique, she and Sam head to Three Pines. Gamache sees an evil in Sam that he only ever saw in a serial killer in prison for life. However, it's a mysterious painting, bricked up in a house in Three Pines, that sends Gamache on a search into the past, looking into his own heart for the fears that threaten the people he loves. With newcomers to Three Pines, the Arsenaults' history, and the secrets hidden behind the wall, danger is closer than Gamache imagines. VERDICT Penny's 18th Gamache novel (after All the Devils Are Here) is intense as the detective digs deep into his own fears. The darkness in this intricately plotted story forces readers to search for contrasting moments of hope.—Lesa Holstine

Library Journal

★ 2022-11-29
Welcome to Three Pines, the idyllic-seeming Canadian capital of murder.

At the heart of Penny’s series of mysteries set in the tiny Quebec town of Three Pines is the relationship between Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the empathetic and capable head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, and his headstrong second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, now also his son-in-law. Gamache has a talent for finding officers who’ve been languishing in their previous jobs and turning them into trusted allies, and Penny has frequently mentioned the way Beauvoir had been “banished to the basement” in an out-of-the-way bureau and that there was something “lean and feral…something dangerous” about him before Gamache swooped in and brought him to the homicide squad. Now, in her 18th installment, Penny flashes back to the case that brought the two men together. A woman named Clotilde Arsenault has been found dead in a remote lake, and Gamache shows up at the local detachment to investigate the case himself. Clotilde had two children, 13-year-old Fiona and Sam, 10, and it turns out she had been prostituting them. In the book’s present-day strand, Fiona is graduating from college after having served time in prison for killing her mother; Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, have supported her, almost folding her into their own family, but they’ve never trusted Sam, who will also be at the graduation ceremony. This chapter in Penny's chronicle of Three Pines contains all the elements that she sometimes divides up between different books: There's a cozy-feeling present-day mystery concerning a hidden room Fiona discovers by looking at the roofline of Myrna's bookstore, and the strange painting found inside; the harrowing story of how Gamache and Beauvoir cracked the case of Clotilde's murder; and a story of corruption within the institutions that are supposed to be protecting us. The plotting is complex and the characters as vivid as ever, but the opportunity to watch Gamache and Beauvoir's relationship develop is what makes this book one of Penny's best.

Penny will have you turning the pages as fast as you can to see how she'll manage to tie everything together.

Kirkus Reviews