I usually just say I love Louise Penny for the comforting and cute the Gamache mysteries. But I have to say The Black Wolf is pretty bad. Ack, it feels like such a betrayal to say so. But it is – a plot that doesn’t really hang together and/or is so hard to follow that you can’t be bothered, characters that are so underdeveloped they have to continually be reintroduced as ‘the one who Gamache is responsible for ruining’ or ‘the one who Gamache hates because he ruined his son’ etc, and an effort at being Relevant so ham-fisted and obvious (the Americans are coming for Canada) that you just can’t stop being annoyed the whole time you’re reading it. Like really – nothing much in this book that I’d recommend – it’s even short on the usually fantastic descriptions of casseroles and croissants.
I know you’ll probably read it – if the waiting list at the library or the tables inside Chapters are any indication – because there’s something about a familiar and comforting series that is hard to resist, but if I were you (and what am I doing here if not giving you unsolicited book reading advice) I’d absolutely skip it in favour of just about anything else.
Literary Vice 