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Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Yet to Be




The Christmas tree stood silent

Twinkling lights had all been lit


A decoration hung all alone 

on a grand old Christmas tree.


It waited for all the glitter and stars

from bulging boxes and bags ~


last years memories wrapped carefully, tucked and stored away.




“Always, the path unwinds through lemony sun pools and pitch vine tunnels.”

~ Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory

Monday, December 9, 2024

Book Review: The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

Author’s note: This mystery novel is indeed beautiful. I reread it again this year while working on a project. Needing a refresher for my over worked brain and a different puzzle to solve I choose this book at random. Having run out of time and inspiration, I turned to a second repost of this novel by Louise Penny.

~~~~~


It’s been ten years since I read The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny. Fortunately, I’ve read a lot of books in those ten years. The mystery was just as fascinating now as it was then. Even more so! It began centuries before when far away monks had resurrected Plainchant in their music. The written works were disputed and findings suppressed by the Church. Most monasteries had their own books of the beautiful music of Plainchant, but where was the original. 


Being ferried across a quiet lake to a monastery hidden deep in a Québec forest begins another mystery. The boatman was sceptical about all the equipment that Inspector Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir brought with them when he knew that no one was ever admitted to the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. Twenty four monks lived within its stone walls constructed by monks escaping the Inquisition centuries before. Behind the heavy oaken door of the monastery was a murder. The musical director and prior, Frére Mathieu, had been found in the abbot’s garden. The abbott recognized the significance of Frére Mathieu’s brutal death and contacted the police. Gamache knew they would be admitted and over the next days investigated all the suspects. All the monks. Gamache and Beauvoir, his second in command and trusted colleague, studied the monastery, looked at plans, attended services, ate with the monks and found the fracture in the community. Only one person interrupted the investigation - the Chief Superintendent of the Surête, Sylvain Francoeur. He arrived unannounced with his own agenda. The friction between Gamache and Francoeur was an old one and was not resolved but escalated. The mystery of the Monastery was solved, but the old friction between Gamache and Francoeur remained. In reading my review of 2014, some members of my book club were unhappy with the book’s ending. I thought some characters were unnecessary, but at this reading I disagree. Each character had his place in the mystery. I have included that review on this post.


I hope to read many more of Louise Penny’s books, several that are on my bookshelves and the many others in the Inspector Gamache series. This re-read held me fast as the Louise Penny told me the history of Plainchants and the monastery, led me down solid stone halls of the monastery, showed me the beautiful music of Plainchants, and the architecture that allowed dancing prisms of light to float through the high windows. 

~~~~~


Review from January 14, 2014


A brutal murder occurs. In a beautiful old monastery deep in Québec.  Not just any monastery, but a closed monastery with a vow of silence. Silence was only broken during services when Gregorian chants were sung. It is in the music that the mystery develops. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Surête du Quebec unravel this mystery. They have come out of their usual community of Three Pines, with completely new characters. The monks and their lives are completely foreign to the two officers, especially to Inspector Beauvoir.


Not all of our book group members were completely pleased with Louise Penny’s novel, missing the characters from Three Pines. A first reader of Louise Penny, the concept of a murder in a monastery was fascinating. Openings to a solution appear and then disappear in the twists and turns that follow the halls and rooms of the old monastery. And, although certain characters seemed unnecessary, I enjoyed this Beautiful Mystery.


“To be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted to be 

was a writer - since I read “Charlotte’s Web” as a child.”

~ Louise Penny


Title: The Beautiful Mystery

Author: Louise Penny

Copyright: 2012

Publisher: Three Pines Creations Inc.

Type: Mystery fiction

Format: Soft Cover

ISBN - 978-0-312-65546-4 (hard cover)

ISBN - 978-1-250-01527-3 (ebook)

ISBN - 978-1-250-03112 (trade paperback)

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Know One Truth

There is no one truth about family 

only the truth from the height of a 


5 year old or a 12 year old with the

wisdom that has come of that age. 


Sisters and brothers are always part 

of it, unless you’re an only child 


but then there are cousins that extend 

like arms to play and share the secrets 


that they believe about their parents. There is no one truth about family. It 


wavers and changes as we grow, trying to keep us as the children we were, so we still know the truth about our family. 


“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.”

~ Anthony Brandt