It is springtime in Three Pines, and everyone is celebrating the graduating class of the local engineering college. The graduates include Three Pines bookstore owner Myrna Landers's niece and a young woman who Chief Inspector Armand Gamache began to help after her case. The woman, Fiona Arsenault, and her brother, Sam, bring up many feelings of unease and mistrust for Inspector Gamache and his son-in-law/friend, Inspector Beauvoir, but after so much time has passed, there is little evidence upon which to base their feelings. When the townsfolk discover a hidden room in Myrna's home which seems to be linked to a mysterious death, the Inspectors must put their feelings aside and consider all possibilities, despite what their guts tell them. An old evil has been released from the hidden room, and it will take a team to protect the town from disaster.
We have arrived at the eighteenth book in the Three Pines series, and it seems like Louise Penny is running out of ideas. After a very thought-provoking and focused previous novel, this one feels haphazard and--regrettably--a bit cheesy. Similar to other books in the series, this one includes a few different storylines and themes, but it feels like some of them get lost in the shuffle--namely a connection to the real-life massacre that occurred at École Polytechnique and an exploration of the case that brought Gamache and Beauvoir together. Penny brings up very heavy topics such as child sexual abuse, police corruption, and school shootings, but chooses not to confront them, and instead reuses gimmicks to bring readers' focus back to the main mystery. This book is scary and, at times, thrilling, but it does not quite hit any deeper notes for me.
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