Glass Houses: A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, 13)

I have read every Louise Penny and this one was her second most annoying. The rest are great. In this book she returns to the swirling miasma of evil theme. Everything is dark, dark, dark. But the worst of it is that just as she is about to reveal something, she moves away from that to something else where the people are as clueless as we are. I am currently at 84% and will finish it, but reluctantly. In fact, it just happened again that she almost revealed something, skipped to people who are unaware that they are surrounded by impending doom, and then she actually skipped back to another time frame, which was completely confusing. I'm sure that it is meant to increase suspense but in me it simply increases frustration.

SPOILER ALERT -- SPOILER ALERTI waited a while to read this book after A Great Reckoning because I knew that it would be impossible to recreate the greatness of that book. If you haven't read it -- it's a masterpiece. I was prepared to be disappointed, but I can't begin to express how really dreadful I found Glass Houses. It is the worst thing Louise Penny has ever written, and in many ways it is a ridiculous book filled with pretensions that it doesn't fulfill. The best I can say about it is that it is elegantly written with Penny's beautiful prose.This book is supposed to be about conscience and the existence of a higher law that conscience must not violate. It is a great theme that's wasted in this novel. Instead the book is filled with gimmicks - the cobrador [the external conscience] being the most obvious, and the author's usual tics are particularly annoying and prevalent in this book - the worst being her build up to a big reveal only to switch to another totally unrelated topic leaving you hanging. This is okay now and then, but Penny does it constantly in this book - it's really annoying.In the book Gamache is trying to solve a murder in Three Pines while also trying to bring down a major drug cartel operating in Quebec. The murder in Three Pines is a smoke screen for the author to hide the bigger issue of the drug cartel, and though they are related, the murder feels like a sub text only. I think it's really only there as a way to introduce the cobrador. Gamache has decided that the war on drugs is lost but nonetheless believes that the only way to get any control of it is to bring down this cartel he has discovered. In pursuit of this he drags his senior officers along with him in this quest. He poses as an incompetent head of the Surete to lull the cartel into coming in the open. This pose results in many deaths and a rising crime wave in Quebec. Large drug shipments are ignored and allowed to pass into the United States unhindered causing, by Gamache's own reckoning, hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths. To support his inaction he quotes Gandhi and the higher court of conscience, he notes that Churchill probably knew about the bombing of Coventry before it happened but didn't intervene because if he did the Germans might figure out the British had Enigma. This is ridiculous and unbelievable. The comparison is meaningless since the war against the Axis could be won whereas the war on drugs will be with us as long as people need to escape reality and pain. So the ends are not really comparable. If Gamache [or Penny] believes this comparison they are both out of touch with reality. Let's suppose Gamache brings down the cartel - in a month, or something like it, the drug trade will be re-established. The head of the cartel tells him as much at the end of the novel. So hundreds, perhaps thousands die for nothing because Gamache was obsessed with the war on drugs to the extent that the people who would die because of his obsession didn't really matter - they were the people of Coventry - collateral damage as it were. Again, this might have been acceptable if his actions could actually stop the flow of drugs, but he can't and no rational person would believe that he could. This is a huge hole in the novel. I could not suspend disbelief to accept it. It made no sense at all. Finally, Glass Houses creates irreparable damage to the character of Gamache as Penny has so lovingly developed it in previous novels. Gamache, in this novel, is neither wise, competent nor kind. He is foolish and dangerous.Don't get me started on the conduct of the trial of the murderer of Katie Evans. The whole thing is laughable. The Crown prosecutor, who is in on Gamache's plan with regard to the drug cartel, treats Gamache, his chief witness, like a criminal. This doesn't make sense. The two men don't like each other, but should be professional enough not to make everyone in the courtroom aware that something is going on that stinks to high heaven. It becomes so obvious that the judge finally intervenes and almost blows the whole plan. To me it is all unnecessary and another one of those gimmicks that don't make sense. The entire trial is unnecessary to the plot. It seems to be there specifically so Armand Gamache can commit perjury. But again this doesn't make sense. The question that he perjures himself on is irrelevant to the case, or at least the question didn't have to be asked in such a way that Gamache had to lie. Penny might have set it up so that asking this question was a malicious act on the part of the prosecutor, but that isn't what she did -- the question was set up by Gamache and the prosecutor together. This is a ploy, and not a very good one, to play to the idea of a higher court and how brave Gamache was to follow his conscience and lie to the court.Finally, in so many of Penny's previous books, the sub plot was Gamache's crusade to clean up the Surete. In this book he is doing exactly what the men he exposed did -- he is using the law for his own purposes. He is corrupting his officers by convincing them not to do what they know is their duty. He is talking about higher causes - which is so often the road to perdition. He wants them to "Burn their boats". This sounds courageous and brave but it isn't. I am reminded of something Thomas More once said. He said the laws of England were a shield, and he would give the devil himself the benefit of law because if he didn't the laws would mean nothing and one day the devil would turn on him and there would be nothing to protect him. Gamache should have thought about that instead of Gandhi. One of the characters in this book says that corruption starts small. What we see in this book is the small beginnings of corruption. Gamache says that he doesn't seek power, but he's not afraid to use it - that is a very dangerous and troubling thing for this particular man with his history to say. Maybe the corruption of Armand Gamache is what Penny's really aiming for. If it is, I'll re-evaluate my rating on the book, but I hope that's not where she's going.I just don't understand this book, I don't understand what Penny has done to her main character. I find it all very sad.

As I was reading Glass Houses, I kept thinking how the quality of Penny's novels has sunk and how I needed to write a review to reflect this, despite not generally liking to write book reviews. Then I read her "Author's Note" at the end, about everything that was going on her life as she wrote it, and I felt like a heel. However, I have decided that though she deserves a lot of slack, I think she also deserves an honest evaluation -- as do all potential readers. If it were just this book, I'd let it go, but frankly, her last several books have not been up to the standard of the initial ones in this series. I have read them all, in order, since discovering them slightly more than a year ago, but now I think it is time to give up. This one was more a drudge than a joy.Initially in the series, the characters in Three Pines were well-described, substantial people I wanted to know. They were supportive, loving, kind. They teased each other, understood each other. Often the conversations were amusing, and usually there was at least one instance that caused me to explode unexpectedly into laughter. In fact, I felt that I wanted to move to Three Pines and go to these impromptu dinner parties, and hang out at the bistro, and just be part of this community, this lifestyle. I wanted these people for my friends.Glass Houses had little or none of this flavor. If this is the first book in the series that you read, you will be introduced to a bunch of indistinguishable and bland characters. The only "cute" details about them are holdovers from previous books, and they were starting to feel overused then. Clara has food in her hair. Ruth has a duck. Is Gracie a puppy or a piglet or a rabbit? Gabri has been one of the most colorful and delightful characters in past installments, but if this was your first reading, you probably don't even know which one he was. I loved the stories that mostly took place in Three Pines, with a small mystery and lots of characterization. This one was largely outside of Three Pines, barely included the residents of Three Pines, and was a convoluted mess of a story.Parts of the story were quite original. The cobrador angle was fascinating (partly based in fact, mostly fictional). The back-and-forth-in-time structure, while not original, worked fairly well. We have a trial going on now although we don't know who the defendant is. As the testimony is given, we then go back in time six months to when the murder occurred. There is a separate story outside the courtroom in the "now" that is rather mysterious itself, and lots of time-shifting in the past story, as well. Mostly, it is handled well and not confusing, but a couple of times I had to rely on the weather (miserably humid and hot now vs. miserably cold and sleety at the time of the murder) to figure out when a conversation was taking place. He wipes his sweaty brow ... oh, so this conversation is taking place "now". Etc.The tone of the book was overly dramatic, a style with pretensions of deep significance while actually saying nothing. That got stale fast. Once in the period of a single page, we have these stand-alone paragraphs: "But, of course, he hadn't"; "But, of course, it wasn't"; "But, of course, they weren't". I found myself saying "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" She often -- way way way too often -- reverts to short choppy sentences, or just phrases. or even single words. It is a style that might be effective used sparingly, but is irritating as hell with overuse. Then other times, a tiny bit of conversation is followed with pages of meandering and excruciating detail to explain, support or justify. I became quite impatient for the book to be over.Louise Penny is an excellent story-teller, as evidenced by her past work. She has a creative mind and a subtle sense of humor ... again, as evidenced by her past work. But she needs to take a break and work on her grief, or retire the saga of Three Pines altogether. Her novel-a-year pace, though remarkable, has got to be emotionally and physically draining. And the work has suffered for it.(BTW, if you are planning to read the book despite my review, and if you are at all food-suggestible, I suggest you go out and get a baguette and brie right now. Save you a trip later.)

I usually love the Gamache books - I have them all, but, for me, this is the most disappointing of the lot for several reasons. First, because I really do dislike the “constantly going backwards and forwards and starting with the end” way of writing that is in vogue right now. I’m old-fashioned - I prefer a linear beginning, middle and end. Secondly, while I can take a bit of the metaphysical in Three Pines (if you can’t these books are not for you) this one barely lets the physical see daylight - too much existential drama and angst gets very wearing. This segues into my last whinge: the author mentions at the end (no plot-spoiling here) that a tragic event was taking place in her own life at the time of writing. I’ve no particular interest in, or desire for, happy endings but apart from Ruth and Rosa there is precious little humour in the book and far too much bleakness which maybe reflects that. I do hope Gamache recovers his pleasure in life ....

One of the dissenting minority here. I too have read the whole series but am now beginning to think it has run its course. In the earlier books the crimes being investigated arose from the particular situations and motivations of individuals rather than being weighed down by a theme of existential threats to civilised society. Portentous is a word that springs to mind. Although this one is again largely set in the village of Three Pines the inhabitants actually have very little to do with the story and there is an impression that they are only there so that the author can satisfy the readers by giving each of them a walk-on part - there are no new developments in their lives or characterisation. I also found the contrived chronology of the story telling to be irritating - I would have enjoyed the book much more if events had unfolded in a more straightforward manner. I appreciate that the author wanted to face Armand with an extreme moral dilemma and test of his strength of character but the actual situation in which he found himself did not entirely carry this reader along the path of the necessary suspension of disbelief. The recent books have certainly painted a very disturbing picture of corruption in Quebec public life. Perhaps it is time to allow Armand to ride off into the sunset and finally enjoy his retirement?I understand that the author has recently suffered bereavement and very sad times and I'm sure all those readers including myself who have greatly enjoyed her writing would want to express their sympathy.

I have of course enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as the other books in the Gamache series. I found the time shifts annoying, and also the plot a bit exasperating. I think Ms Penny's strength is in the way she presents the people as in The Murder Stone, and I feel I know the inhabitants of Three Pines as well as my own friends! I also prefer a more straightforward plot, but that's just me.

I have loved all the Inspector Gamache novels, each better than it's predecessor but this one is writing at its best.The author reels us in, slowly, surely, as events unfold in a mist extraordinary way. Louise Penny has such a sure hand, not only in the crimes and the way they are committed but in the depths of her characterisations. These people are no cardboard cut-outs, they are intensely human, and complex, and almost unbearably real in their failings and vulnerabilities as well as their individual strengths.Three Pines, too, is a remarkable village with its own tortured tales, so expertly explored and set in previous books.I thoroughly recommend this to anyone wanting unique characters, real ethical and moral dilemmas, and simply a first-rate read. Do, however, start from the beginning of the series. The character development is not only superb but important. You will be in for a real treat.

.... when, one day I had a meeting to attend and didn't want to leave Armande and the team to face an impossible situation without me there as I was so deeply absorbed in this book.I have loved all the Inspector Gamache books and this one, for me was outstanding. Each character is drawn with so much subtlety and careful, clever detail. The plot is uncompromising in the horrific way in which police have to have to make impossible decisions. Is Gamache too good to be true as some reviewers suggest? I think there is really humanity in him - and thankfully some heroes do exist to inspire us! The next book cannot come too soon for me.