BOOK REVIEW: Glass Houses

OPINION:

GLASS HOUSES (A CHIEF INSPECTOR GAMACHE NOVEL)

By Louise Penny

Minotaur, $28.99, 400 pages

Only the village of Three Pines, an enchanted enclave in Canada, would suddenly be haunted by a cobrador (debt collector).

And only there would a masked and mysterious figure be allowed to stand on the village green staring at the local residents because of the remarkable tolerance of Armand Gamache, chief of the Surete du Quebec, with the explanation that the creature, whatever is, isn’t doing anything illegal.

Not until the body of the cobrador is found in the basement of a local church once used for gun running does the mystery become a murder case in a court in Montreal.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that the body was discovered by Reine-Marie, the wife of Chief Superintendent Gamache now struggling with one of the most crucial legal battles of his life — dealing with a highly hostile prosecutor. The judge, who is coping with her first homicide case, is equally unhappy at trying to maintain civility between two experts who personally dislike each other in a case where Gamache maintains that the cobrador dates back centuries to Spain and a custom of appointing a “conscience” to track down debtors and punish them.

This is Louise Penny’s most complex and bloody concoction, especially in the location of the lovely village which is Gamache’s home. The mystery of the cobrador develops into a lot involving a drug war threatening both Canada and the United States, with illegal shipments of the lethal drug Fentanyl and its successor Krokodil, which turns to scales the skins of its users.

Gamache, who is as tough as he can be compassionate, realizes he is in a desperate situation in which he needs all the help can get, including the angry prosecutor whose daughter is a victim of the drug plague. Gamache is also aware that probably no prisoners can be taken in a fight that involves an American and a Canadian drug cartel where the leaders are contemptuous of the strength of the Quebec lawmen. Gamache operates in the shadows with a lemon meringue pie as far as he will go in collaboration with the crown prosecution leader. He is also aware that his level of trust with his own men in the Surete has dropped, especially with his son-in-law Beauvoir, who suspects his superintendent of committing perjury in court.

The stakes are as high as Gamache has ever known them, and he especially is concerned at the involvement of the residents of Three Pines, especially that of a dishwasher known as Anton, and an eccentric poet called Ruth who owns an equally eccentric and profane duck called Rosa. Gamache does not carry a gun because he knows how his wife would feel about it. But he does carry a knife and knows how to use it.

Ms. Penny brings her plot to a violent and bloody conclusion with a brawl in the bistro of Three Pines where automatic weapons are brought into play as the leaders of the drug cartels organize the transportation of Fentanyl from Canada to Vermont. Their success in doing so well will mean the defeat of the Quebec law enforcement and the triumph of the forces of a new and more violent international drug war.

Ironically, the most violent scene in the book involves Gamache when he uses his knife to end the life of a member of the drug cartel. He moves too late to prevent the shooting of the leader of the Quebec homicide squad who lies apparently dead at his feet, shot in the head. However, Gamache and Beauvoir continue the bistro battle into the woods around Three Pines where the drug leaders are seeking asylum in Vermont and escape from the Canadians.

It isn’t really a happy ending but Gamache and his forces of law and order have at least won a major battle if not the war. Canadian authorities acknowledge what he has done. All that haunt the minister of justice is the memory of the tall and kindly man and what he can do with a knife.

• Muriel Dobbin is a former White House and national political reporter for McClatchy newspapers and the Baltimore Sun.