Louise Penny has really written an extraordinary series of books. To be on the thirteenth in a series and still manage to write a fresh and suspenseful mystery is more than I could’ve expected when I began this series. Penny has the rare ability to capture her characters so fully, to maintain their individuality, without them becoming caricatures of themselves. Her books are textural, atmospheric, and carefully constructed and thoughtful—down to each sentence.

This book actually begins near the end, something atypical for Penny’s novels, and unfolds in two alternating timelines. While this can be an overused fictional tool, I think it serves both Penny and Gamache well here. Gamache has moved on from the academy and taken the top job as Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec. When the book opens, Gamache is giving testimony in the murder trial which has yet to occur for the reader. He is being questioned by an oddly hostile prosecutor, the very person in the courtroom who should, by all accounts, be on the same side as Gamache. The courtroom is stifling in the summer heat, and the atmosphere is solid and tangible. Here the questions begin to formulate....What is going on?

Meanwhile...the previous autumn: At the Three Pines Halloween party, which actually takes place on November first (must hand out the candy on Halloween!), a strange cloaked figure shows up among the guests. People generally avoid this unspeaking costumed figure, but then the following day the hooded figure takes up a post on the village green. Doing nothing but standing still and silent, the village is set on edge by this strange figure dressed in black. But Gamache knows there is nothing to be done—nothing illegal is happening, no matter how unsettling it has become. They must wait it out.

As the timelines build up into one another, answering some questions while raising others, Penny has constructed one of her most gripping and suspenseful novels to date. Somehow the characters feel their most complex, the story at its most thrilling, and the construction of the novel at its most effective.

Audiobook, the [a:Robert Bathurst|3163054|Robert Bathurst|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1444015886p2/3163054.jpg] version: This Gamache novel was made for Bathurst’s voice. His performance is subtle, immersive, and nuanced. I’m so glad he was chosen to take over for the late Ralph Cosham. The complexity he brings makes for such a satisfying narrative, and I look forward to the next read by Bathurst.

Sidenote: There is not only a fantastic interview between Robert Bathurst and Louise Penny found at the end of the audiobook, but there is also—just before that and just at the end of the book—a lovely and deeply personal note from Penny. Having just suffered the loss of her husband, writing this book allowed her to visit the very same friends, the very same village, each of her readers also visits each time a Gamache novel is picked up.