Glass Houses: A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Book 13)

"Glass Houses" is simply stupendous, and if I could give it several dozen stars, I would! And that Louise Penny could write a book so full of love, tenderness, and hope while dealing with her own grief, means that her characters and stories come from a place very deep in her heart.Thank you for giving your many, many readers the gift of your astonishing talent and your great humanity.

I’ve loved this series from the beginning. But with so many new authors and amazing reads available, I’ve fallen behind. So…I decided to try the audio version to give me a boost.A surprisingly different experience! Putting voices to characters you’ve imagined over the years. I thought Gamaches’ character was represented perfectly, the voice and tone suiting him to a T.But once the narrator added voices to other characters of Three Pines I stumbled, needing to ‘reroute’ my imagination. It felt similar to watching the movie after you’ve finished the book..🤷🏻‍♀️(Which I never do!)Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec, Armand Gamache is in court giving testimony in a murder trial. He’s the prosecutor’s star witness. Yet they seem to be battling each other. Why? What could they possibly hope to achieve by not working together?I enjoyed my long overdue visit to Three Pines and it’s eclectic inhabitants. I believe I’ll stay with the audio versions until I catch up in the series.

Interesting way of delivering the story. The back and forth of the timelines kept you guessing.

I can only say if you haven't started this series you need to. But you have to start at the beginning. You will come to love all the characters. You will feel the dark foreshadowing in each book that will keep your mind churning as you try to figure it out all the while turning on every light in the house because...... well because you feel safer. There are the funny moments to balance the fear and you hope and pray there is a happy ending. I don't want to spoil things so just go start this series, laughter and tears await.

SPOILER ALERT -- SPOILER ALERTI waited a while to read this book after A Great Reckoning because I knew that it would be impossible to recreate the greatness of that book. If you haven't read it -- it's a masterpiece. I was prepared to be disappointed, but I can't begin to express how really dreadful I found Glass Houses. It is the worst thing Louise Penny has ever written, and in many ways it is a ridiculous book filled with pretensions that it doesn't fulfill. The best I can say about it is that it is elegantly written with Penny's beautiful prose.This book is supposed to be about conscience and the existence of a higher law that conscience must not violate. It is a great theme that's wasted in this novel. Instead the book is filled with gimmicks - the cobrador [the external conscience] being the most obvious, and the author's usual tics are particularly annoying and prevalent in this book - the worst being her build up to a big reveal only to switch to another totally unrelated topic leaving you hanging. This is okay now and then, but Penny does it constantly in this book - it's really annoying.In the book Gamache is trying to solve a murder in Three Pines while also trying to bring down a major drug cartel operating in Quebec. The murder in Three Pines is a smoke screen for the author to hide the bigger issue of the drug cartel, and though they are related, the murder feels like a sub text only. I think it's really only there as a way to introduce the cobrador. Gamache has decided that the war on drugs is lost but nonetheless believes that the only way to get any control of it is to bring down this cartel he has discovered. In pursuit of this he drags his senior officers along with him in this quest. He poses as an incompetent head of the Surete to lull the cartel into coming in the open. This pose results in many deaths and a rising crime wave in Quebec. Large drug shipments are ignored and allowed to pass into the United States unhindered causing, by Gamache's own reckoning, hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths. To support his inaction he quotes Gandhi and the higher court of conscience, he notes that Churchill probably knew about the bombing of Coventry before it happened but didn't intervene because if he did the Germans might figure out the British had Enigma. This is ridiculous and unbelievable. The comparison is meaningless since the war against the Axis could be won whereas the war on drugs will be with us as long as people need to escape reality and pain. So the ends are not really comparable. If Gamache [or Penny] believes this comparison they are both out of touch with reality. Let's suppose Gamache brings down the cartel - in a month, or something like it, the drug trade will be re-established. The head of the cartel tells him as much at the end of the novel. So hundreds, perhaps thousands die for nothing because Gamache was obsessed with the war on drugs to the extent that the people who would die because of his obsession didn't really matter - they were the people of Coventry - collateral damage as it were. Again, this might have been acceptable if his actions could actually stop the flow of drugs, but he can't and no rational person would believe that he could. This is a huge hole in the novel. I could not suspend disbelief to accept it. It made no sense at all. Finally, Glass Houses creates irreparable damage to the character of Gamache as Penny has so lovingly developed it in previous novels. Gamache, in this novel, is neither wise, competent nor kind. He is foolish and dangerous.Don't get me started on the conduct of the trial of the murderer of Katie Evans. The whole thing is laughable. The Crown prosecutor, who is in on Gamache's plan with regard to the drug cartel, treats Gamache, his chief witness, like a criminal. This doesn't make sense. The two men don't like each other, but should be professional enough not to make everyone in the courtroom aware that something is going on that stinks to high heaven. It becomes so obvious that the judge finally intervenes and almost blows the whole plan. To me it is all unnecessary and another one of those gimmicks that don't make sense. The entire trial is unnecessary to the plot. It seems to be there specifically so Armand Gamache can commit perjury. But again this doesn't make sense. The question that he perjures himself on is irrelevant to the case, or at least the question didn't have to be asked in such a way that Gamache had to lie. Penny might have set it up so that asking this question was a malicious act on the part of the prosecutor, but that isn't what she did -- the question was set up by Gamache and the prosecutor together. This is a ploy, and not a very good one, to play to the idea of a higher court and how brave Gamache was to follow his conscience and lie to the court.Finally, in so many of Penny's previous books, the sub plot was Gamache's crusade to clean up the Surete. In this book he is doing exactly what the men he exposed did -- he is using the law for his own purposes. He is corrupting his officers by convincing them not to do what they know is their duty. He is talking about higher causes - which is so often the road to perdition. He wants them to "Burn their boats". This sounds courageous and brave but it isn't. I am reminded of something Thomas More once said. He said the laws of England were a shield, and he would give the devil himself the benefit of law because if he didn't the laws would mean nothing and one day the devil would turn on him and there would be nothing to protect him. Gamache should have thought about that instead of Gandhi. One of the characters in this book says that corruption starts small. What we see in this book is the small beginnings of corruption. Gamache says that he doesn't seek power, but he's not afraid to use it - that is a very dangerous and troubling thing for this particular man with his history to say. Maybe the corruption of Armand Gamache is what Penny's really aiming for. If it is, I'll re-evaluate my rating on the book, but I hope that's not where she's going.I just don't understand this book, I don't understand what Penny has done to her main character. I find it all very sad.

I love Louise Penny books. The mysteries are always engaging and she never falls into the "formula trap" as many authors do. The twists and turns never sound familiar. Her characters are so real they feel like friends and neighbors.

I think this is my favorite so far. Ha! I have no favorite! They are all captivating from page one. These characters have become so familiar it's like reading about friends. This one was more tense than usual and I hurried thru the last third of the book because it was unbearable to wait for the end! The world came to Three Pines in the most horrible way, but Three Pines prevails. If you are new to these books, I think you'll enjoy them most read in order.

I usually love the Gamache books - I have them all, but, for me, this is the most disappointing of the lot for several reasons. First, because I really do dislike the “constantly going backwards and forwards and starting with the end” way of writing that is in vogue right now. I’m old-fashioned - I prefer a linear beginning, middle and end. Secondly, while I can take a bit of the metaphysical in Three Pines (if you can’t these books are not for you) this one barely lets the physical see daylight - too much existential drama and angst gets very wearing. This segues into my last whinge: the author mentions at the end (no plot-spoiling here) that a tragic event was taking place in her own life at the time of writing. I’ve no particular interest in, or desire for, happy endings but apart from Ruth and Rosa there is precious little humour in the book and far too much bleakness which maybe reflects that. I do hope Gamache recovers his pleasure in life ....

One of the dissenting minority here. I too have read the whole series but am now beginning to think it has run its course. In the earlier books the crimes being investigated arose from the particular situations and motivations of individuals rather than being weighed down by a theme of existential threats to civilised society. Portentous is a word that springs to mind. Although this one is again largely set in the village of Three Pines the inhabitants actually have very little to do with the story and there is an impression that they are only there so that the author can satisfy the readers by giving each of them a walk-on part - there are no new developments in their lives or characterisation. I also found the contrived chronology of the story telling to be irritating - I would have enjoyed the book much more if events had unfolded in a more straightforward manner. I appreciate that the author wanted to face Armand with an extreme moral dilemma and test of his strength of character but the actual situation in which he found himself did not entirely carry this reader along the path of the necessary suspension of disbelief. The recent books have certainly painted a very disturbing picture of corruption in Quebec public life. Perhaps it is time to allow Armand to ride off into the sunset and finally enjoy his retirement?I understand that the author has recently suffered bereavement and very sad times and I'm sure all those readers including myself who have greatly enjoyed her writing would want to express their sympathy.

4.5* A stranger dressed like the grim reaper stands on the Three Pines green. Is this figure, a modern day Cobrador, sending a message or taking revenge? Whatever it’s there for this figure is a disturbing presence and the villagers want it removed but, as no law is being broken, Gamache can do nothing.When a body is found everything changes. Gamache is now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté so it is Isobel Lacoste who heads up the investigation. Gamache is working, under the radar, on a major investigation.The book opens at the murder trial of the accused and is told in flashback. Louise Penny has the knack of writing multiple storylines that are complicated, gripping and will keep you guessing right to the end incredibly well. You may think you know what’s happening and whodunnit but there is always a very neat change of direction or piece of information that changes everything bringing into play the connections and beautifully tying everything together. You also become incredibly invested with the characters who are so well written along with the setting which is wonderful. This book is no different and everything builds up to an ending that is tense, thrilling, heart-stopping and will have huge repercussions on all those concerned.It’s so good to be back, after far too long, with Gamache, Jean-Pierre, Isobel, Reine Marie and all the characters in Three Pines. This is a wonderful series and Glass Houses is an absolutely cracking read.

I have loved all the Inspector Gamache novels, each better than it's predecessor but this one is writing at its best.The author reels us in, slowly, surely, as events unfold in a mist extraordinary way. Louise Penny has such a sure hand, not only in the crimes and the way they are committed but in the depths of her characterisations. These people are no cardboard cut-outs, they are intensely human, and complex, and almost unbearably real in their failings and vulnerabilities as well as their individual strengths.Three Pines, too, is a remarkable village with its own tortured tales, so expertly explored and set in previous books.I thoroughly recommend this to anyone wanting unique characters, real ethical and moral dilemmas, and simply a first-rate read. Do, however, start from the beginning of the series. The character development is not only superb but important. You will be in for a real treat.

I have listened to and read all 13 Gamache novels and loved them all, some more than others. I think this latest installment is one of Louise Penny's best. Some reviewers don't like the changing of timeline in the book, and criticize that there is not enough about the villagers, like Clara, Olivier etc in the book. But in my opinion that is great because it is different to all the others in the series and shows that the series is not stuck in same old. It is admittedly more bleak than we are used to but then the subject is very serious. I had to stop reading on and off because I couldn't cope with the tension any more. I love all her books, each for different reasons, I think this is the one which comes closest to being a crime thriller, her darkest book yet.