Another quality Penny effort. Gamache has returned to the Surrete but is reviled by many, partially due to a doctored video of a police action. Ethical and political questions must be resolved in the midst of flooding and murder.

Penny is quite a good writer. My only complaint is that she repeartedly mentions the factory shootout in her novels, and more than one time in each novel. I am tired of the factory episode and wish that she would substancially reduce the reference to this episode.

I fully appreciate the last two ratings and agree that the references used with people of colour and the F bomb were an unpleasant surprise and completely unnecessary.
I did find the complex story engaging through to the end.
Being a dog owner and lover and living with my partner with dementia, I was deeply moved by the author's Acknowledgement at the end of the story.

The author's writing demeans and vilifies characters of colour. The story repeatedly references a doctored video of a white police officer shooting black teens, underscoring it was fake. Will not read this author again - too disgusted.

I'd say I DNF'd this, but I didn't even start. Word to the wise, most of the authors I've read actually wait until after the first page (usually once the reader's somewhat invested) to start dropping F-bombs. How is this anybody's bestseller?

Worst. Book. Blind Date. Ever.

Wonderful to have Gamache back at the Sûreté du Québec. Complicated mystery. Always a pleasure to visit the citizens of Three Pines. Kristi & Abby Tabby

This was my first read of this series, and coming to it at #15 makes me a bit late to the party. Nevertheless, I felt the book worked well as a stand-alone and I was able to pick up on what had gone before in the series. The characters were completely human – decent, complex – and seemed to be a product of their small town setting. I suspect the characterization would have been more jaded and hard-edged had they lived in a large city. I got quite engaged in the plot until near the end where there were so many twists, turns and backtrackings that it felt like Penny was trying to stretch it out. Ultimately my credibility quotient was stretched with the final outcome.

Absolutely love getting back in touch with Armand Gamache and all the great inhabitants of Three Pines. Another great read by Penny. It will be hard to wait another year for her next book to find out what happens to everyone.

an Armand Gamache novel. I'm again reminded of what a good writer she is.

Loved this one. I had my ideas about whodunnit, but we're kept guessing, there are so many ways for people to do bad things to each other.
I loved Penny's heroic description of an extreme weather event, describing things to come, a hundred-year flood every 2 years. We need more artists telling us what to expect, how to react, how to treat each other in crisis.
I am unencumbered with preconceptions about Quebecoise (?!) French pronunciation and spelling or misspelling. (Misspelt...?!?) But then, I listen to the audio books, read by one (two!) of the best book readers out there. Needless fowl language, well, it seems to me that the speech patterns of various individuals are pretty realistic. But I ain't got it piled higher or deeper, just an MS... I would like to know more about Billy's dialect that Armand can't understand. Reminds me of my friend, Guy Ray, from rural Al'bama; took me almost a year to not need his speech decoded for me. (BTW, listening to the first audio books, I imagined Jonghi to be Pakistani.)