-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, #3
by Louise Penny
When a group of villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, they are hoping to rid the town of its evil?until one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death? Or was the victim somehow helped along?
Enter Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. He knows evil when he sees it. But this time, he’s investigating a case that will force him to face his very own ghosts ... as well as those residing in this seemingly idyllic town. Are the residents of Three Pines hiding something great and sinister about their past? Or is April about to deliver on its fateful threat?
"Starred Review. Arthur Ellis Award–winner Penny paints a vivid picture of the French-Canadian village, its inhabitants and a determined detective who will strike many Agatha Christie fans as a 21st-century version of Hercule Poirot." - Publishers Weekly
"Who wouldn’t be charmed by the dramas of [the Three Pines] community…? Yet it is Penny’s fastidious, cultured, and smart Inspector Gamache who makes The Cruelest Month impossible to put down." - People magazine
"Starred Review. Perhaps the deftest talent to arrive since Minette Walters, Penny produces what many have tried but few have mastered: a psychologically acute cozy. If you don't give your heart to Gamache, you may have no heart to give." - Kirkus
"How much do I love [this] series? So much that I don’t merely crave the next installment - I want to live in Three Pines… Let Penny takes exquisite care to create, flesh out, and nurture the relationships in the village and on the police force. I will just have to sulk in the suburbs until she writes the next one." - Cleveland Plain Dealer
"The thing about the Gamache novels is that while the crimes are intriguing...Gamache [is] completely original." - Booklist
"Starred Review. Gamache is an engaging, modern-day Poirot...entertaining and thought-provoking." - Library Journal
This information about The Cruelest Month was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Jean-Francois Bérubé
Louise Penny is the multi-award winning author of the Chief Inspector Gamache novels, set in her home province of Québec, Canada. Her books, including State of Terror written with Hillary Rodham Clinton, have sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, topped international bestseller lists, including the New York Times, and been translated into 32 languages. The recipient of both the Order of Canada and l'Ordre national du Québec, her country's highest civilian honours, her Three Pines Foundation reaches out to those in crisis and offers financial and emotional support, with a special focus on literacy as well as dementia care. Her husband, Michael, died of dementia in 2016. She lives with her Golden Retrievers Muggins and Charlie in a village south of Montréal.
If you liked The Cruelest Month, try these:
by Alan Drew
Published 2023
An idyllic California town. A deadly secret. A race against killers hidden in plain sight...
by Catherine Lacey
Published 2021
A figure with no discernible identity appears in a small, religious town, throwing its inhabitants into a frenzy.
by Louise Penny
Published 2015
Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he'd only imagined possible. Until his neighbor seeks him out, when her artist husband fails to come home.
I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
