Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn Mysteries

July 31, 2024September 1, 2024 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Image of Ngaio Marsh, from a photograph by Henry Herbert Clifford, circa 1935 — Ngaio Marsh by Henry Herbert Clifford ca 1935, crop. Public Domain

New Zealand-born Ngaio Marsh gained renown as one of the four Queens of Crime. She was part of a group of women along with Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Margery Allingham who began writing in the 1930’s, during the Golden Age of detective fiction. Her last work was published in the year of her death, 1982. She is best known for her Inspector Roderick Alleyn mysteries of which she wrote 32. She also loved theatre and directed theatrical productions and this love shows up in some of her books. There is one more work published under her name, with co-author Stella Duffy in 2018, not included in this listing.

I read the Alleyn series over several years, delighted in this gentlemanly detective, and his artist wife, Troy. I intend this both as a resource for Marsh fans as well as an overview of her work. In nearly all cases, I reviewed from the Felony & Mayhem republications of her work, often available at a discount. I’ve listed the publication info for my review with a link to the publisher in the title and a link in the word “review” to my full review. I should note that my reviews include plot summaries but hopefully not spoilers giving away the conclusion Enjoy!

The Reviews

A Man Lay Dead, (Roderick Alleyn 1), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2011 (originally published in 1934). Sir Hubert Handesley hosts one of his famous weekend parties and Nigel Bathgate, a young reporter is invited to join his cousin Charles Rankin for the weekend’s entertainment, the Murder Game, which becomes serious when Rankin turns up the corpse–for real! Review

Enter a Murderer (Roderick Alleyn 2), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2012 (originally published in 1935). Invited to see a play with his sidekick Bathgate, Alleyn actually witnesses the murder he will investigate. Review

The Nursing Home Murder, Ngaio Marsh (Roderick Alleyn 3). New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2011 (originally published in 1935). The Home Secretary collapses of acute appendicitis during a speech on a key bill against radicals and is taken to a private hospital of an old doctor friend for emergency surgery, dying under suspicious circumstances soon after the operation. Review

Death in Ecstasy (Roderick Alleyn 4), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2012 (originally published in 1936). Nigel Bathgate happens upon the strange religious rites at the House of the Sacred Flame just in time to witness the death of Cara Quayne, the Chosen Vessel, when she imbibes a chalice of wine laced with cyanide. Review

Vintage Murder (Roderick Alleyn 5), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (first published in 1937). Alleyn falls in with a theatre company while in New Zealand and discovers that neither murder nor police work take a vacation. Review

Artists in Crime, (Roderick Alleyn 6), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (originally published in 1937). A murder occurs at the studio of artist Agatha Troy, who Alleyn had met on his voyage back to England; the beginning in fits and starts of a romance while Alleyn seeks to solve the crime. Review

Death in a White Tie (Alleyn 7), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012. At a premiere debutante ball, Lord Robert Gospell’s call to Alleyn about a blackmail conspiracy is interrupted. A few hours later, Gospell turns up at Scotland Yard in the back of a taxi–dead! Review

Overture to Murder (Roderick Alleyn 8), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2012, (Originally published in 1939). A comedic play in a small village to raise funds for the church to buy a new piano turns into a murder mystery when the pianist is shot when playing the opening notes of the prelude by a gun concealed within. Review

Death at the Bar (Roderick Alleyn 9), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2013 (first published in 1940). A holiday at a secluded seaside inn, and a challenge at darts ends up in murder from prussic acid (cyanide). Review

Death of a Peer (Surfeit of Lampreys) Roderick Alleyn 10), Ngaio Marsh. New York, Harper Collins: New York, 2009. A New Zealander’s visit to a happy-go-lucky English family is interrupted by the gruesome murder of Lord Charles’ brother in the elevator serving their flat, making the family prime suspects for Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn. Rev i ew

Death and the Dancing Footman (Roderick Alleyn 11), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (originally published in 1941). A staged house-party amid a snowstorm consisting of mutual enemies ends in a death and a suicide that Alleyn must sort out. Review

Colour Scheme (Roderick Alleyn 12), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2013 (first published in 1943). A struggling New Zealand spa by some sulphur springs becomes the scene of espionage, the visit of a famous stage actor, and murder. Review

Died in the Wool (Roderick Alleyn 13), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2014 (originally published in 1945). New Zealand member of Parliament Flossie Rubrick is found dead, concealed in a bale of wool from her farm, and Alleyn, working in counter-espionage during the war, comes to investigate because of secret research on the farm. Review

Final Curtain (Inspector Alleyn 14), Ngaio Marsh. New York, Felony & Mayhem Press, 2014 (originally published in 1947. While Inspector Alleyn is returning from wartime service in New Zealand, Troy Alleyn, his artist wife is commissioned on short notice to paint a portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, a noteworthy stage actor, meeting his dramatic family, encountering some practical jokes including one that infuriates Sir Henry at his birthday dinner, after which he is found dead the next morning. Inspector Alleyn arrives home to investigate a possible murder in which his wife is an interested party. Review

Swing, Brother, Jones (Inspector Alleyn 15), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (originally published in 1949). An eccentric British Lord joins a swing band for a number that involves a gun, and the person at whom he shoots is actually killed with an unusual projectile–a knitting needle–right in front of Alleyn! Review

Night at the Vulcan, (Roderick Alleyn 16), Ngaio Marsh. New York Felony & Mayhem, 2014, originally published in 1951. An actor is found dead in the actor’s dressing room at the end of a play. It seems to be suicide by gas asphyxiation, but Alleyn finds clues pointing to murder by someone in the company. Review

Spinsters in Jeopardy (Inspector Alleyn 17), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2014 (first published in 1953). Alleyn takes his family along to visit a distant cousin in southern France while collaborating with the French in investigating a drug ring. Review

Scales of Justice (Roderick Alleyn 18), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2014 (first published in 1955). An aristocrat in a small village turns up dead by a trout stream with a trout at his side. Review

Death of a Fool (Roderick Alleyn 19), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2014 (originally published in 1957). A fertility dance culminating in a ritual beheading of a fool, followed by his resurrection, ends with the fool having been truly decapitated. Review

Singing in the Shrouds (Roderick Alleyn 20), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2014 (originally published in 1958). Alleyn joins a ship bound for Cape Town seeking a serial murderer, one of nine passengers. Review

False Scent (Roderick Alleyn 21), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2015 (originally published in 1959). The fiftieth birthday celebration of famed stage actress Mary Bellamy is interrupted when she is found dead in her bedroom, poisoned by her own insecticide. Review

Hand in Glove (Roderick Alleyn 22), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015 (originally published in 1962). An April Fool’s scavenger hunt organized by Lady Bantling ends badly when a body is found under a drainage pipe in a ditch. Review

Dead Water (Roderick Alleyn 23), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015 (originally published in 1963). A spring on an island celebrated for its healing powers becomes the site of the murder. Review

Killer Dolphin (Inspector Alleyn 24), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015 (originally published in 1966). Through an accident, a playwright realizes his dream of a renovated Dolphin Theatre, with packed houses for one of his plays, until a murder occurs and a boy actor is badly injured in a botched theft. Review

A Clutch of Constables (Roderick Alleyn 25), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2015 (originally published in 1968). Troy takes a spur-of-the-moment river cruise only to learn that her berth had belonged to a man murdered by an international criminal, who happens to be on the cruise with her! Rev i ew

When in Rome (Roderick Alleyn 26), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015. Alleyn goes undercover on a Roman holiday tour led by a sketchy tour guide suspected of drug smuggling and other corrupt activities and ends up collaborating in a murder investigation. Review

Tied Up in Tinsel (Roderick Alleyn 27), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015 (Originally published in 1972). Hilary Bill-Talsman is the subject of a Troy portrait and host of a Christmas house party that includes a Druid Pageant, marred when the chief Druid disappears. Alleyn arrives from overseas just in time to solve the mystery. Rev i ew

Black as He’s Painted (Roderick Alleyn 28), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2015 (originally published in 1974). The President of Ng’ombwana is coming to England. A man with known enemies, his old school friend Alleyn attempts to persuade him to accept Special Branch protection but fails to prevent a murder at an embassy reception. Review

Last Ditch (Roderick Alleyn 29), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2016 (originally published in 1976). Alleyn and Troy’s son Ricky finds himself in the middle of a murder of a young horsewoman and gets mixed up with a group of drug runners when all he wants to do is get away on a Channel island and write. Review

A Grave Mistake (Roderick Alleyn 30), Ngaio Marsh. New York, Felony & Mayhem Press, 2016 (originally published in 1978). A wealthy widow in a small English village dies of an apparent suicide at an exclusive spa, but clues point to murder with a circle of suspects with motives. Review

Photo Finish (Roderick Alleyn 31), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2016 (originally published in 1980). A New Zealand trip for Alleyn and Troy goes sideways when Isabella Sommita, a soprano and diva is murdered after she debuts a badly written opera composed by her latest love interest. Review

Light Thickens (Roderick Alleyn 32), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2016 (originally published in 1982). Set once again at the Dolphin theatre as Peregrine Jay stages Macbeth, a play surrounded by superstition, a production plagued by macabre practical jokes, and the real murder of the title character discovered just after the play’s climactic scene, with Alleyn in the front row. Review

I discovered in compiling this list that somehow I had skipped one, #18. Oh joy! That means another Alleyn to read. I will add the review when I’ve read it. For others who have read the series, I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I sure did!

Update: After compiling this list, I read Scales of Justice, and have added the review!

The Month in Reviews: December 2022

January 2, 2023August 31, 2025 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

First, I will start with some “classics.” I reviewed a classic Ngaio Marsh Alleyn story, a classic of political theory from F.A. Hayek, and the classic manual of inductive Bible study from Robert A. Traina. I enjoyed a book on emerging technologies and a helpful approach (I think) to conversations about the intersection of science and faith. I finally got to the second book in the Poppy Wars trilogy and am impressed that R.F. Kuang can created both an interesting world and intricate plots at such a young age. Then there were some thought provoking books including Peter Singer on effective altruism, Richard Mouw on patriotism and the Christian, a couple of books on flourishing at work, a historical study of Christian parenting in American history, and a very hopeful book about the church. Mark Teasdale made me think about abundance in scripture and life and Samuel Emadi about the significance of Joseph, Jacob’s son in God’s redemptive purposes. Finally, I read several “landmark” books–Willa Cather’s Pulitzer winner, the great new biography of Samuel Adams, and of course, Louise Penny’s latest.

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. New York: Penguin Press, 2017. A cartoonist and scientist team up to look at ten emerging technologies and the challenges, both scientific and moral, that are involved in bringing these into existence in the “soonish” future. Review

How to Be a Patriotic Christian, Richard J. Mouw. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022. Navigating the space between Christian nationalism and national cynicism, explores how Christians might properly love country within their primary allegiance to Christ, focused around civic kinship and responsibility. Review

The Road to Serfdom (Fiftieth Anniversary edition), F. A. Hayek. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995 (originally published in 1944, link is to the 2007 Definitive Edition). An argument that collectivist, planned economies lead to the erosion of individual liberties, the rule of law, and result in the rise of totalitarian governments. Review

Participating in Abundant Life, Mark R. Teasdale. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022. A holistic vision of salvation that includes material standards of living, quality of life, and eternal life under the rubric of abundant life. Review

Swing, Brother, Jones (Inspector Alleyn #15), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (originally published in 1949). An eccentric British Lord joins a swing band for a number that involves a gun, and the person at whom he shoots is actually killed with an unusual projectile–a knitting needle–right in front of Alleyn! Review

Christian Parenting: Wisdom and Perspectives from American History, David P. Setran. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2022. A historical study of Christian parenting beliefs in two eras of American history, the Colonial and Victorian periods. Review

A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2022. The arrival in Three Pines of a sister and brother involved in a murder case that brought Armand and Jean Guy and the opening of a sealed room and the strange painting found within confront Gamache with two of his greatest fears. Review

Make Work Matter, Michaela O’Donnell, PhD. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2021. A book on finding meaningful work, focusing on the adaptive skills and sense of calling one needs, the character one develops, and a four-part entrepreneurial cycle for the journey. Review

The Most Good You Can Do, Peter Singer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. Singer’s argument for living a life of effective altruism, using evidence and reason to make the most effective decisions to improve the world. Review

From Prisoner to Prince (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Samuel Emadi. London/Downers Grove: Apollos/IVP Academic, 2022 (Link for From Prisoner to Prince at UK publisher). A study of Joseph as a type of the Messiah, considering the place of Joseph in the Genesis narrative, the theological themes arising from the Joseph narratives and how later OT and NT writers appropriate this material. Review

Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being, Al Lopus with Cory Hartman. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022. Based on the study of hundreds of organizations, identifies eight factors that contribute to healthy organizational cultures and high employee engagement. Review

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Stacy Schiff. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2022. A biography of this Boston revolutionary who, working mostly behind the scenes, fanned into flame the colonists decision to seek independence. Review

Methodical Bible Study. Robert A. Traina. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2002 (First published in 1952). The foundational text and manual in the inductive Bible study movement. Review

Navigating Faith and Science, Joseph Vukov. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022. A framework for understanding the intersection of science and faith. Review

Becoming the Church, Claude R. Alexander Jr. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022. Studies of the first six chapters of Acts revealing the purposes, practices, and principles that led to the transformation of a loose group of individuals into the church. Review

One of Ours, Willa Cather. New York: Vintage Classics, 1991 (Originally published 1922). The story of Claude Wheeler, raised on a Nebraska farm, longs to live his ideals and find his purpose and does so in the First World War. Review

The Dragon Republic (The Poppy Wars #2), R. F. Kuang. New York: Harper Voyager, 2019. Seeking revenge against The Empress of Nikan, Rin joins the effort of the Dragon Lord to create a republic, who seeks to enlist the support of southern warlords and a foreign power, the Hesperians. Review

Best Book of the Month. Stacy Schiff’s The Revolutionary, on Samuel Adams, barely missed out as my best biography of the year. Schiff makes a convincing case that Adams carried the torch that set the colonies afire against the British. He was never successful in his personal affairs but gave a rationale, fostered strategic efforts, and mobilized the resistance that became a revolution. He gets overlooked among Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin and even his nephew, John Adams. This book helps redress the balance.

Best Quote of the Month: Richard Mouw tackles a controversial subject in How To Be a Patriotic Christian. I appreciated this proposal of what patriotism informed by Christian values might look like:

“But patriotism is not just about our relationship to specific government policies and practices. It is about belonging to a community of citizens with whom we share our political allegiances–and even more important, our common humanness. Patriotism is in an important sense more about our participation in a nation than it is about loving a state” (p. 14).

What I’m Reading: I have three books awaiting review that I just finished in the last few days. One is Theophany by Vern Poythress, a biblical study of the various instances of God’s appearances and their theological significance. The Intentional Year is a great resource for a new year as we take stock of our lives over the past year and think about developing life-giving rhythms and practices for the new year. Crumpled Paper is written by local (to Central Ohio) author Michael S. Moore, an intriguing story that drew me in as it describes artistic processes and networks in a fun, fictional story. On my currently reading pile at present is Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout which includes an exquisite vignette of Olive’s visits with a former student undergoing cancer treatments. The Most Famous Man in America is a biography of 19th century American preacher Henry Ward Beecher. I’ve loved all of the Oliver Sacks works I’ve read but am just getting around to his most famous, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Face to Face With Christ is a study of Christ as our priest and mediator, focusing on the book of Hebrews. Finally, to prepare for an interview with him, I am reading Richard Foster’s Learning Humility. I’ve been deeply influenced by his works on spiritual formation over the forty years since he released Celebration of Discipline. The book describes humility as a vanishing virtue. I would agree.

As you can see, I already have some good books lined up to review in 2023!

The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014! It’s a great way to browse what I’ve reviewed. The search box on this blog also works well if you are looking for a review of a particular book.

The Reviews: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series

June 14, 2022November 8, 2024 / rtrube54 / 10 Comments

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

I recently finished Louise Penny’s The Madness of Crowds, the seventeenth in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and the most recently published. [Updated 12/13/2022: Number 18 in the series, A World of Curiosities has been published and a review for the book has now been added.] For the moment, there are no more Gamache novels to read, unless I go back and re-read the series. This has quite simply been one of the best series I’ve read. While Penny’s books are often favored by women readers, I’ve found myself drawn by the strong male characters, especially Armand and Jean Guy. Particularly, I want to grow up to be like Armand! Equally, I find myself deeply appreciating the strong and diverse female characters–Reine Marie, Clara, Myrna, Isabelle Lacoste, and of course, Ruth (and Rosa!). Like so many readers, I want to live in Three Pines, or foster the kind of Three Pines community where I live (perhaps one of Penny’s hopes). I also have been provoked to thought, and not a little self-examination, by Penny’s insight that a murder often begins many years before with a nursed grievance allowed to fester. Finally, there are Gamache’s four sentences that lead to wisdom:

I don’t know.

I need help.

I’m sorry.

I was wrong.

The older I get, the more I find myself saying these things and I find myself looking back at my younger self and wish I’d learned this wisdom sooner.

I thought it would be fun to create a page with all my Gamache reviews. While I try to avoid spoilers in the reviews, those of subsequent books may give away plot details you’d rather discover for yourself if you haven’t read the previous ones. But if you are like me and want to go back and remember, this might prove helpful. I’ve just included publication info, a brief summary, and a link to the full review.

Still Life (Chief Inspector Gamache #1), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2005.

Summary: The suspicious death of Jane Neal a day after her painting is accepted into an art show brings Gamache and his team to Three Pines, and to the grim conclusion that someone in this small community is a murderer. Review

A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache #2), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2006.

Summary: An unliked but aspiring author comes to Three Pines and is murdered in front of a crowd at a curling match yet no one sees how it happened. Review

The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Gamache #3), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2007.

Summary: Gamache returns to Three Pines to solve a murder during a seance at the old Hadley House while forces within the Surete’ (and on his team) plot his downfall to avenge the Arnot case. Review

A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Gamache #4), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2008.

Summary: The Gamache’s getaway to a peaceful lodge is interrupted, first by an unloving family reunion, and then by the death of one of the family, crushed under a statue. Meanwhile, the naming of a child forces Gamache to face his own family history. Review

The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Gamache #5), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2009.

Summary: The body of an unknown man is found in the bistro of Gabri and Olivier, and Olivier is the chief suspect! Review

Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Gamache #6), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2010.

Summary: Gamache and Beauvoir are on leave after an attempt to rescue an agent goes terribly wrong. As each faces their own traumas they get caught up in murder investigations in Quebec City and Three Pines. Review

A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Gamache #7), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2012.

Summary: The vernissage for Clara’s art show is a stunning success with glowing reviews only to be spoiled when the body of her estranged childhood friend is found in her flowerbed. Review

The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2013.

Summary: While solving a case involving the murder of a prior in a remote monastery, Gamache must confront his arch-nemesis Chief Superintendent Sylvain Françoeur. Review

How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Gamache #9), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2013.

Summary: The murder of the last Ouellet quintuplet, a former client and friend of Myrna’s brings Gamache back to Three Pines which serves as a hidden base of operations as Sylvain Francoeur’s efforts to destroy Gamache comes to a head. Review

The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Gamache #10), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2015.

Summary: Gamache’s peaceful retirement is interrupted when Peter Morrow fails to return as agreed a year after his separation from Clara and they embark on a search taking them to a desolate corner of Quebec. Review

The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Gamache #11), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.

Summary: A young boy from Three Pines, prone to fantastic tales, reports seeing a big gun with a strange symbol, and then is found dead, setting off a search for a murderer, and an effort to thwart a global threat. Review, Second Review

A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Gamache #12), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.

Summary: Gamache returns to the Sûreté as Commander of its Academy, and finds himself at the center of a murder investigation of one of its corrupt professors. Review

Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Gamache #13), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2017.

Summary: A mysterious figure robed in black, the murder of a woman found in those robes, a confession, and a trial, during which Gamache has made choices of conscience that could cost lives and save many. Review

Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Gamache #14), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2018.

Summary: Gamache, Myrna, and Benedict, a young building maintenance worker who hopes to be a builder are named as liquidators of the estate of a cleaning woman while Amelia Choquet, caught with drugs, is expelled from the Academy to the streets as a powerful and lethal drug is about to hit. Review

A Better Man (Chief Inspector Gamache #15), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2019.

Summary: Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacoste are together again, searching for a missing girl amid rising floods and a flood of social media attacks against Gamache and the art of Clara Morrow. Review

All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache #16), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2020.

Summary: A family visit of the Gamaches to children in Paris suddenly becomes an investigation into the attempted murder of Stephen Horowitz, Armand’s godfather, and the murder of a close associate, and will put the Gamaches in great peril. Review

The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache #17), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2021.

Summary: A Christmas assignment to provide security for a professor proposing mercy killing leads to a murder investigation in Three Pines. Review

A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2022.

Summary: The arrival in Three Pines of a sister and brother involved in a murder case that brought Armand and Jean Guy and the opening of a sealed room and the strange painting found within confront Gamache with two of his greatest fears.

The most recent novel in this series envisions what it is like to emerge from the pandemic. One thing I would say is that this series has been one of the things that got me through the pandemic. My review of the first volume was posted on April 2, 2020, less than a month after the world locked down. The most recent posted June 13, 2022, a bit over two years later. Pandemic has morphed into endemic and the new normal is a scarier world of war in Ukraine, inflation, gun violence, and political discord stretching from Sri Lanka to the United States. Amid all the murders (both in the real world and the books), the Gamache series reminds me of the goodness that remains, a goodness worth fighting and resisting for as well as celebrating in our daily lives. And there is one more goodness, at least…Louise Penny is still writing and book 18, A World of Curiosities, is expected in late 2022. When I get the chance to read it, and any subsequent numbers, it and they will be added to the list!

[Updated 12/13/2022: The review of book 18, A World of Curiosities is now included in this list.]

The Month in Reviews: March 2022

April 1, 2022September 1, 2025 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

It’s always hard to sum up a month’s reading. One thing I noticed was that I didn’t read all new stuff–a philosophy of walking from 2014, a Ngaio Marsh from 1941, Anne Lamott from 2018, *Braiding Sweetgrass* was from 2013, a story about a famous mathematician who never was from 2006, a Wes Jackson essay collection from 1996, and a Thornton Wilder classic that goes back to 1924. Not everything that interests me was written in the last year or so, just the books publishers and authors want one to review. In addition to my “book of the month,” a few that stood out were Michelle Van Loon’s *Translating Our Past* on understanding our lives through our family histories, Rob Dixon’s *Together in Ministry* on how men and women may collaborate well in ministry, and Korie Little Edwards and Michelle Oyakawa’s , *Smart Suits, Tattered Boots* on the expressions of civil rights leadership among contemporary Black clergy. A particularly appropriate book for our times was Michael Ignatieff’s *On Consolation* (although I found Anne Lamott’s *Almost Everything,* which touches on similar themes, more helpful!).

A Philosophy of Walking, Frédéric Gros, translated by John Howe, illustrated by Clifford Harper. Brooklyn: Verso, 2014. An extended reflection on the significance of walking as part of the human condition, consisting of short chapters interspersed with accounts of walking philosophers. Review

Lead Like It Matters to God, Richard Sterns. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021. In contrast to many leadership books that outline steps to success, describes what it is like to give value-shaped leadership in both for profit and non-profit settings. Review

To Build a Better World, Philip Zelikow and Condoleeza Rice. New York: Twelve, 2019. An account of the period from 1988-1992 and the transition of states, economic systems, and military alliances, reflecting an emerging post-cold war world. Review

The Cross-Shaped Live, Jeff Kennon. Abilene, TX: Leafwood Publishers, 2021. A practical exploration of what it means to be made in the image of a God who died on the cross, to have the cross shape and form the way we live. Review

Death and the Dancing Footman (Roderick Alleyn #11), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (originally published in 1941). A staged house-party amid a snowstorm consisting of mutual enemies ends in a death and a suicide that Alleyn must sort out. Review

Translating Your Past, Michelle Van Loon. Harrisburg: Herald Press, 2021. A guide to making sense of one’s past and how our family history, traumas in previous generations, our genetic makeup, and for many, how adoption help us understand our lives and place in the world. Review

George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles (The Ken and Jean Hansen Lectureship Series), Timothy Larsen. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018. Three lectures on the works of George MacDonald with responses that focus on the miraculous in these works, particularly with regard to the incarnation, faith amid doubt, and the re-enchantment of life. Review

The Samaritan Woman’s Story, Caryn A. Reeder. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022. Challenges the view of the Samaritan woman as a sexual sinner, considering how this has been read in the church, and the realities of the life of women and marriage that points to a very different reading. Review

The Last Professional, Ed Davis. Tijeras, NM: Artemesia Publishing, 2022. A young man trying to find the tramp who assaulted him as an adolescent catches a freight and meets an old hobo running from a killer and the two form a friendship around the lure of riding the freights. Review

Almost Everything: Notes on Hope, Anne Lamott. New York: Riverhead, 2018. A series of “notes” or essays on hope, especially amid disturbing times. Review

Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013. A collection of essays centered around the culture of sweetgrass, combining indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge. Review

Together in Ministry, Rob Dixon (Foreword by Ruth Haley Barton). Downers Grove: IVP Academic/Missio Alliance, 2021. A field research-based approach to mixed-gender ministry collaboration identifying ten attributes for healthy partnerships. Review

The Artist and the Mathematician, Amir D. Aczel. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006. The story of the Bourbaki, named after the greatest mathematician who never existed, who led a revolution in the emergence of the “new math,” introducing a new rigor into the field. Review

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder with Foreword by Russell Banks, Afterword by Tappan Wilder. New York: Harper Perennial, 2015 (originally published in 1927). A friar witnesses the collapse of a woven rope bridge with five people falling to their deaths and tries to discern some reason why, in God’s providence, each of them died. Review

Smart Suits, Tattered Boots, Korie Little Edwards and Michelle Oyakawa. New York: New York University Press, 2022. A study, using interviews of Black Ohio religious leaders and research studies of mobilization efforts to explore whether Black religious leaders are still able to mobilize civil rights efforts, and if so, how, when, and why they do. Review

On Consolation, Michael Ignatieff. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2021. On how significant figures through the ages have found comfort amid tragedy and hard times, enabling them to press on with hope and equanimity. Review

Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew, Hans Boersma (Foreword by Scot McKnight). Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. In an effort to foster understanding between the two disciplines, a theologian outlines five areas for biblical scholars to understand about theology as it bears upon the Bible. Review

Becoming Native To This Place, Wes Jackson. New York: Counterpoint Press, 1996. Six essays advocating agricultural practices that reflect close attention to the character of a particular place. Review

A Better Man (Chief Inspector Gamache #15), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2019. Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacoste are together again, searching for a missing girl amid rising floods and a flood of social media attacks against Gamache and the art of Clara Morrow. Review

Book of the Month. Books really can change and challenge us. Caryn A. Reeder’s The Samaritan Woman’s Story did that for me. I always thought (and taught about) her as a loose woman. Reeder challenged me to find that in the text. And I discovered that I was finding it in my assumptions, leading to self-examination of why that was and did this reflect a narrative about women that comes from somewhere else than the Bible. The book changed a lot more than my view of the Samaritan woman.

Quote of the Month: It seems that everyone finally discovered Braiding Sweetgrass and the wonderful collection of reflections Robin Wall Kimmerer offers bring science and indigenous wisdom together. I was particular taken by her discussion of the Honorable Harvest and her articulation of the principles that reflect indigenous wisdom:

Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
Never take the first. Never take the last.
Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.
                                        --Kimmerer, p. 183.

What I’m Reading. I just finished Terence Lester’s When We Stand which talks in the most encouraging terms of the multiplication that occurs when we mobilize for some cause with others. I’ve been reading David Loyn’s The Long War, an account of the Afghanistan war, America’s longest war. I’m struck that I really didn’t pay attention, except that we were still in Afghanistan. Loyn explores the reasons, going back to the war’s earliest years why this was such a long war that ended so badly not only for us but for Afghanistan. Reformed Public Theology is a wonderful collection of articles on how Reformed theology helps the writers think through various issues of public concern. The Way of Perfection is Teresa of Avila’s counsel on prayer. William F. Cook III’s Jesus Final Week uses a “harmony of the gospels” approach to look day by day at the week between the Triumphal Entry and the Resurrection. Great reading as I approach that week in the church year. Finally Black Hands, White House is part history, part memorial, and part advocacy for a monument on the Washington Mall that recognizes the slave history that built our capitol city and much of our country. She recounts the skilled work of many enslaved Blacks by name, including the man who played the instrumental role in the Statue of Freedom’s placement atop our capitol building.

Thanks for reading along, and I hope you’ve found something of interest!

The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014!

Review: A Better Man

March 31, 2022September 1, 2025 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

A Better Man (Chief Inspector Gamache #15), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2019.

Summary: Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacoste are together again, searching for a missing girl amid rising floods and a flood of social media attacks against Gamache and the art of Clara Morrow.

We left Gamache removed from his position as Chief Superintendent after his daring and legally questionable tactics to quash the drug trade. Jean Guy, who had taken his old position of Chief Inspector of Homicide is headed for a private sector job in Paris in a couple weeks. And Armand? He accepts the one position no one thought he would take–his old job as Chief Inspector. And for two weeks, he is working under Jean Guy, his protege’ and son-in law. Awkward, eh?

During a meeting where Gamache is deferential to his new boss, Agent Cloutier discusses a call she received from Homer Godin, the father of her godchild Vivienne. Vivienne, married to an abusive husband, is missing after she had called to say she was leaving and coming to him. Beauvoir assigns him and Cloutier to have a look around, and their encounter with the husband, Carl Tracy, only amplifies their fears.

A larger fear is looming as well. There is a rapid thaw combined with spring rains throughout Quebec. Ice jams threaten bridges, rivers are rising everywhere, including the Bella Bella running through Three Pines, and the giant dams in the north are under stress. Gamache, called back to Montreal for a meeting of top civic leaders, quietly upstages the premier by recommending a drastic, but ultimately effective strategy. He’s dismissed from the meeting, and discovers something else is rising–a social media storm of criticism against him that jeopardizes even his current demoted status. Will Chief Superintendent Toussaint, who Gamache had recommended, protect herself and abandon Gamache to the sharks?

A similar social media storm is surrounding Clara Morrow, whose latest exhibit of miniatures have been panned, causing critics to re-evaluate her past art. Ruth, thinking to help, invites Dominica Oddly, the one New York art critic who has never reviewed Clara’s work to Clara’s studio. And while Oddly speaks glowingly of Clara’s past work, she considers the miniatures–well, as they say in French, merde and proceeds to write a review to that effect and then discovers what it means to tell all the truth with malice, while Clara faces the truth about these works and the wreckage of her career.

Isabelle Lacoste, at loose ends until her new assignment is finalized, joins the investigation to find Vivienne, working with Cloutier, who she has mentored. Then Beauvoir comes down to Three Pines when news of the flooding of the Bella Bella reaches him, and the three team up on the investigation. Amid the harrowing moments of narrowly averting the flooding of Three Pines using the tactics Gamache has recommended elsewhere, they find Vivienne’s body and a bag of her belongings, searched as her husband turns up and demands that they stop.

More and more, the evidence points to Carl Tracy, the husband. Cloutier gains access to a private Instagram account of Tracy’s through his sometime lover and assistant in marketing his pottery, and finds incriminating evidence. But when Tracy is arraigned, with Vivienne’s father present, it all goes sidewise due to the judge’s rulings that errors in procedure mean the whole evidence trail is poisoned fruit and cannot be used. Tracy goes scot-free while Gamache works to restrain Homer Godin from killing him.

It looks like Beauvoir’s last case with Gamache is going to hell. Are all the tweets true? And it has gotten worse. The real video that showed Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacoste in the factory ambush has been doctored to make Gamache look like a child killer. Then someone under the name @dumbass, who Gamache thinks is Ruth after her stunt with Dominica Oddly, posts the real video, bringing up old wounds for all involved.

What will they do? They go back and look at the evidence. What do they have that isn’t poisoned? And as they do, it takes them in unexpected directions and surprise revelations. The end of this one gets very twisty indeed.

There is a question running throughout, asked most desperately by Homer Godin, filled with grief and revenge, that Gamache and others face–what if it were your daughter, your child? What would you do? Do you try to murder the man who is your daughter’s abuser and killer? Do you let someone do so, when he is as vile as Tracy comes across? Ought the pursuit of justice, often hampered by procedures that protect the rights of the accused, step aside to allow revenge?

There is also a theme of mentors and mentees that runs through the book: Gamache and Beauvoir and their reversed roles and changing relationship as Beauvoir prepares to leave, Isabelle and Cloutier, particularly when Cloutier screws up, and Gamache and a young agent, Bob Cameron, a former football player who lost his job for repeatedly holding to protect his quarterback. Because of a relationship with the victim, he is even a possible suspect, yet we see Gamache beginning to teach, and I suspect we will see more of Bob Cameron.

We also see characters wrestle with the theme of what they will do when they screw up, or are perceived to do by vicious social media. Will Gamache be “a better man”? Will Clara become a better artist? Meanwhile, we are left wondering whether things between Myrna and Billy Williams will go anywhere and stand in amazement at the drunken old poet Ruth as she leads the effort to sandbag the river frontage against rising floods, and whispers wise comfort to Homer at his most murderous.

I continue to love these books as an extended exploration of the character of leadership and the communal decency of this small village. This one had so many layers that wove seamlessly together in a twisting and fascinating plot that I’ve come to recognize as a mark of Penny’s genius.