Dennis Fischman's Reviews > A World of Curiosities

Please do read Louise Penny, and please do NOT start with this one!

Loyal fans of Three Pines will enjoy learning the backstories of some of their favorite characters (how Gamache became a policeman in the first place, how he met Beauvoir and saw his potential) and listening to all the characters make in-jokes with one another. (Warning, though: this is a serial killer murder mystery involving at least one psychopath, so if you prefer the cozier books in the series, you're out of luck this time.)

Sadly, if you're a first-time reader, you may find yourself wondering who these people are and why you should care about them. Yes, Penny does character sketches of her regulars, but they are so one-dimensional, their traits seem more like tics. Hearing about what they've been through is no substitute for having gone through it with them for the previous seventeen books.

One other thought, which should have occurred to me before: these books are very Catholic. I don't mean preachy or proselytizing, but the whole worldview is about evil and good, sin and forgiveness, betrayal and redemption. The person who first recommended them to me, in fact, was a former Catholic nun turned Episcopal minister. I do enjoy the series, but as a Jew, I'm realizing that it's foreign to me, and not just because it's set in Canada.