A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4)

Author – Louise Penny
Genre – Detective, Mystery, 
Source - Kindle
Rating - 4
Read - February 2016

As you would have figured, I am binge-reading Louise Penny's Three Pines series. 
About this one - I liked it. Liked it a lot. Very detailed insights into the characters - and one gets to see a lot more of Reine-Marie, who and Gamache are perhaps one of the nicest couples in literature. You cannot help but contrast Gamache and Reine-Marie with the other couples in the book, including the one we have already got to know very well.
Very observant portrait of a dysfunctional family. The writer understands. And is a very, very good writer. Some of the family feud scenes are bloody excellent!

So, 4/5? Why not 5? Well, the murder, and the murderer, are a bit meh. That's why. You'd have figured out by now that the murder is perhaps NOT THE MOST important part of the series. But that's all right by me.

Previously:
Still Life ;
A Fatal Grace ;
The Cruelest Month .

The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #3)

Author – Louise Penny
Genre – Detective, Mystery, 
Source - Kindle
Rating - 5
Read - February 2016

And this is what we have been waiting for. Perfect. 

Previous Armand Gamache mysteries:
Still Life ;
A Fatal Grace .

A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)

Author – Louise Penny
Genre – Detective, Crime, Quebec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache
Source - Kindle
Rating - 4
Read - January 2016

Love you, Louise Penny, And you, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. But.. but..... Cool down. Deep breaths. Be Calm, even, if you insist.
Could you have done without that final, final twist, maybe? It took the story from being a bona fide masterpiece of detective fiction, to ... eh, how do I put it across as gently as I could .... the realm of 'that's-a-little-impossible'...
Okay, on to #3 of the series then.

Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1)

Author – Louise Penny

Genre – Detective, Police Procedural, Mystery, Village Mystery

Source - Audiobook

Rating - 4

Read - October 2015

This is my first Louise Penny, and the first of the Armand Gamache series. It's an excellent book, comparable with (and in some ways similar to) Val McDermid. But while I read McDermid after the best of Flynn and Higashino, I read this after (excellent) non-fiction. And loved it more. Armand Gamache is just what a superb fictional detective should be, but often isn't. He is more a Byomkesh than a Holmes. More a Miss Marple than a Poirot. He is not quirky, but is sage and calm. and dignified. And a detective does not have to be quirky to be compelling. Gamache is proof. Superb insight into Francophone Quebec too. Complaint? The ending would read better than it sounds, I think. Good, satisfactory, but I have read better.