Louise Penny: All the Devils are here, 9780751579277, C format Export Paperback, Sphere

 

Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache crime series, all  set in the village of Three Pines in Canada’s Quebec countryside , was a recommendation of my friend  Neva several years ago and I have never looked back…  I am hooked now and have passed on the Gamache virus to several friends. To quote the Washington Post:  The series is deep and grand and altogether extraordinary”;  this sums it up pretty well. 

It is always difficult to talk about crime fiction without giving away too much of the plot as is the case with  Louise Penny’s latest  “All the devils are here”,  in my view her best to date even if it does not take place in Canada but solely in Paris.  Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache are visiting their children, Annie and Daniel who both have moved to Paris with their families, as Annie is about to give birth to her second child. 

When Stephen Horowitz, a self-made billionaire who is Armand’s godfather and the man who raised him after his parents died tragically, is deliberately attacked and run over by a truck after a family dinner with both of them witnessing the murder attempt , Armand is determined to find out why someone wants Stephen  dead who is barely alive after the attack falling into a coma. Things get even stranger when Armand and Reine-Marie head for Stephen’s apartment and discover the body of a man in the living room.  As Gamache starts to investigate with the French police not being too amused about his involvement,  secrets his godfather  hid from him over the years surface. As Armand starts to question the man Stephen really is, he becomes dangerously entangled in a spider web of lies and deceit endangering both him and his family.  I will not reveal  anything more  … had a great few days curling up in my new armchair and submerging myself in this terrific book.  Thank you Louise Penny, 5 stars from moi!