"The Cruellest Month" by Louise Penny

"April is the cruellest month" is the opening line of "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot. The phrase also figures in the title and storyline of Louise Penny's third Inspector Gamache/Three Pines novel, "The Cruellest Month," which will be the next book under discussion in the Notes From Three Pines Readalong (date not specified, but generally mid/late month). 

In a timely coincidence, I started reading this book in mid-April (right after I finished Bono's memoir), just after the Easter long weekend -- right in step with the events of this book. We're back in the quaint old Loyalist village of Three Pines, Quebec, back among old friends -- and back in the old Hadley house, which played a key role in the first book and is almost a character in its own right. A seance at the spooky abandoned house ends in tragedy when one of the attendees is seemingly (quite literally) scared to death -- but a closer investigation suggests murder.  Once more, it's up to Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec to unravel what actually happened. 

As with many mystery series, the murder and whodunnit generally plays second fiddle to the characters and to the continuing storylines that play out in the background (and for this reason, I would highly recommend starting with the first book, "Still Life," and reading the books in order).  In this case, the primary ongoing storyline is Gamache's involvement in -- and the continuing fallout from -- what's known as "the Arnot affair." Each successive book in the series so far has fed us a few more pieces of the puzzle, and we learn more -- a lot more -- in this one about what happened. 

In her Goodreads review of this book, Mel said, "This is the book where Penny hits her stride. Where you know your way around the village and people. It feels like Penny breathes a big sigh of relief and settles into the series. Plus it's a great mystery." 

I agree. All the books have been good so far, but this one feels more satisfying somehow. Dark and dramatic, but very well done. 

I'm rating this one 5 stars on Goodreads. Maybe more like a 4.5, but I'm feeling generous, lol.  On to Book #4!  

This was Book #15 read to date in 2023 (and Book #2 finished in April), bringing me to 33% of my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 2 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2023 tagged as "2023 books."  

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There were a couple of things in this book that I wanted to elaborate on, from a personal perspective. Relevant from an ALI perspective, there was a passage from Chapter 31 that stopped me in my tracks:  a discussion between Gamache and Myrna, the used bookstore owner [edited, with boldface emphasis added by me]:  

'The near enemy. It's a psychological concept. Two emotions that look the same but are actually opposites. The one parades as the other, is mistaken for the other, but one is healthy and the other's sick, twisted.'...

He leaned forward and spoke, his voice low. 'Can you give me an example?' 

'There are three couplings,' said Myrna, herself leaning forward now, and whispering though she didn't know why. 'Attachment masquerades as Love, Pity as Compassion, and Indifference as Equanimity.'...

'I don't understand,' Gamache said finally, bringing his eyes back to Myrna. 'Can you explain?'

Myrna nodded. 'Pity and compassion are the easiest to understand. Compassion involves empathy. You see the stricken person as an equal. Pity doesn't. If you pity someone you feel superior.'

'But it's hard to tell one from the other,' Gamache nodded. 

'Exactly. Even for the person feeling it. Almost everyone would claim to be full of compassion. It's one of the noble emotions. But really, it's pity they feel.'

'So pity is the near enemy of compassion,' said Gamache slowly, mulling it over.

'That's right. It looks like compassion, acts like compassion, but is actually the opposite of it. And as long as pity's in place there's not room for compassion. It destroys, squeezes out, the nobler emotion.'

'Because we fool ourselves into believing we're feeling one, when we're actually feeling the other.'

'Fool ourselves, and fool others,' said Myrna.

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A possible clue in the mystery comes in the form of the novel "Sarah Binks" by Paul Hiebert (the murder victim had a copy in her night table drawer). 

I've never read "Sarah Binks" but seeing the name gave me a start of recognition. "Sarah Binks" is a 1947 satirical novel, set in Saskatchewan, that won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. 

(If you've never heard of Stephen Leacock, he's another Canadian writer, best known for "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," which we read in school.  The book was loosely based on his hometown of Orillia, north of Toronto, and he's buried in the churchyard at Sibbald's Point on the shores of Lake Simcoe, near the final resting place of another famous Canadian writer, Mazo de la Roche, author of the Jalna series of books. Dh & I have stayed a couple of times at a nearby inn -- where de la Roche was a frequent guest, and which some believe was the model for Jalna -- and taken a stroll through the cemetery. But, I digress...!) 

The author, Paul Hiebert, was a chemistry professor (!) at the University of Manitoba -- and the reason I know his name and "Sarah Binks" is that he lived in the same small Manitoba town where my parents live, and where I worked for a year on the weekly newspaper, before I got married in 1985 and moved to Toronto. His little house by the river was apparently his family's cottage, and he moved there permanently after he retired. I never met him, but everyone in town knew him and was very proud that he lived there. (When I looked at his biography and a list of his books, I realized he'd published one in 1984 called "Not as the Scribes" -- the same year my parents moved there, in April. I finished journalism school a few weeks after they arrived, and started working for the newspaper that fall.)  He died a few years later, in 1987. (The cottage has since been torn down and a new house has been built on the site, although I think there's a plaque nearby.)   

By the way -- he & his wife didn't have any children. 

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One more note:  I knew Louise Penny was a widow -- she mentions her late husband Michael in the preface -- but (surprise!) she's also childless. An interview she gave to Publishers Weekly in 2021 reveals: 

Penny and her husband didn’t have kids (“Michael loved me enough to try, and I loved him enough to stop trying,” she says), but she sees her books as her unique little progeny. “I don’t know that they’ll survive me, but I hope they do. I put everything I have into them. They’re all my beliefs. My DNA. All my time, my efforts. I put my love and focus into them as one would a child.”