The Cruelest Month (2007)

The Cruelest Month: A Three Pines Mystery by Louise Penny

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like any series, the entries may vary in their appeal, but with Louise Penny, once you are hooked, it doesn't matter. I feel like the quirky people in the village of Three Pines are friends and I desperately wish that Inspector Gamache was a real person.

The Cruelest Month is the third in the series. Unfortunately I began with book 6, which is one of the best and has won a ton of awards. Then Trick of the Light #7 was released last year and I had to read that. Finally I started at the beginning. Now I just have A Rule Against Murder and The Brutal Telling before I start fretting about when a new title will be released.

This is a series that I recommend be read in order for the greatest enjoyment.

In The Cruelest Month some of the villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a seance at the old Hadley house, the scene of other unhappy events, and one of them dies apparently of fright. But something isn't right.

An interesting feature of these books is that the poems ascribed to Penny's character Ruth are actually the work of Margaret Atwood

I was hanged for living alone,
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name, 
and a surefire cure for warts. 

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