Inspector Armand Gamache is worried. A disturbed, potentially dangerous young man appears in the small Estrian village of Three Pines to reconnect with his equally troubled sister.
Around the same time, an obscure 150-year-old letter emerges out of nowhere and puts the inspector on the trail of a mysterious walled room. There we find a copy of a famous painting, the Paston Treasure, strangely menacing, and an old book full of secrets. In the village, people die of natural causes. But are they really that natural?
A world of curiosities will fully satisfy avid readers of the investigations of Armand Gamache, the flagship character of Louise Penny, while remaining accessible to neophytes.
The novelist notably recounts the event that cemented the inspector’s vocation, a very real tragedy, the Polytechnique massacre on December 6, 1989. Nathalie Provost, a survivor who campaigns for gun control, becomes a character in the novel (being a long-time reader of Louise Penny’s novels, she happily agreed to play a role in A World of Curiosities).
The author also relates the investigation which marked the first, difficult contacts between Armand Gamache and the man who would become his deputy and his son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. This investigation will introduce them to two traumatized children, Fiona and Samuel, the same ones who will appear, years later, in Three Pines.
Armand Gamache is wary of Samuel and fears his presence in the peaceful village. He fears a tragedy. On the contrary, Jean-Guy Beauvoir has developed a good relationship with Samuel and appears confident. Even Armand Gamache’s wife, Reine-Marie, has a good opinion of the man who has become a handsome young man.
The suspense of A World of Curiosities relates in particular to Armand Gamache’s dark intuition about Samuel. Is the inspector on the wrong track? The clues seem to go against his bad feelings. Normally, the intuitions of the hero of a detective novel are to be taken seriously. But Armand Gamache is perhaps more human than we think. Could he also be wrong about the true nature of people?
The interest of A World of Curiosities is not limited to this suspense. The author looks into the very real mystery surrounding the Paston Treasure, painted around the 1660s, and thus invites the reader to a short art history lesson. It also brings to life a fascinating character who lived in the 18th century in Ville-Marie, Anne Lamarque, a tavern owner suspected of witchcraft because she owned a grimoire.
These fascinating elements mingle with a rather well-turned plot which takes the reader where he really didn’t think he was going.
