• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews - Audio And Video Online Reviews 1991-2018
  *Starred Review* Cosham, the masterful reader of A Trick of the Light (also available from Macmillan) and other titles in this popular series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, narrates Penny's latest. Haunting plainchants open and close the recording, setting the mood for the locked-room mystery. In measured, sonorous tones and an accent reflective of the French Canadian setting, Cosham conjures the disquieting atmosphere of an isolated Quebec monastery, where the choir director's murder invades the monks' silence and evokes the pervasive influence of their chants. A pirated recording of the cloistered monks' chants has created dissension, as some of the brothers want to take advantage of their fame, while others prefer to remain reclusive. Sent to investigate the murder, Gamache is fighting several battles of his own—his viperish superior and ongoing personal demons. The puzzle is never the only focus in Penny's mysteries, with characters' inner thoughts and actions fighting for center stage. Cosham enlivens Penny's cast of intriguing secondary characters (including Gamache's daughter, supervisor, and assistant inspector) and excels in his portrayal of Gamache, a man troubled by ghosts from his past who suffers acutely at his own and others' failures. Penny's gorgeous prose sings in Cosham's hypnotic performance and mirrors the chants, with phrases repeated for emphasis and intensity, creating a musical cadence. This is a superior production of serious multidimensional drama, breathtakingly performed. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

LOUISE PENNY is the New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author of seven previous novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Her debut, Still Life, won the John Creasey Dagger and the Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys Awards, and was named one of the five Mystery/Crime Novels of the Decade by Deadly Pleasures magazine. Penny was the first author ever to win the Agatha Award for Best Novel four times—for A Fatal Grace, The Cruelest Month, and The Brutal Telling (which also received the Anthony Award for Best Novel), and Bury Your Dead (which also won the Dilys, Arthur Ellis, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero Awards). She lives in a small village south of Montréal.