In order to pace myself I read the Inspector Gamache books in the season or month they are set and it has been eight long months since I last visited the greater environs of Three Pines. Book nine, How the Light Gets In, had a feeling of finality to it, of bringing together the various storylines and setting a new normal for our characters. I was unsure what I should expect when it finally came time to read The Long Way Home, what would life look like in Three Pines now that Gamache had retired there?
In reality what I found was characters and an author trying to decide what is next. The Long Way Home refers to several things, and certainly the book is chronicling how Gamache and others come to terms with the actions necessitated by the end of How The Light Gets In, but it is also a study in the character of Peter Morrow even though he is largely absent from the page. It has been over a year since Clara kicked Peter out, and she is finding the weeks of silence following when he should have returned to Three Pines to be filled with ever-increasing dread. Why has he not returned? What has happened to him? She is concerned enough to ask the still recovering and newly retired Gamache to help her find him.
Gamache and Beauvoir do help Clara, and the majority of the book trails the Clara-led journey to find Peter, visiting new locations and old characters along the way. It is hard to find the best way to write another review of a Louise Penny book, particularly when I’m not fond of it, while also walking the tightrope of not giving the mystery away. The mystery in this one isn’t who committed the murder (although there is eventually a confirmed murder) but rather what is keeping Peter away. I found it hard to care why Peter was missing, or if he had in fact reformed from his terrible ways which led to Clara kicking him out in the first place.
The other let down for me in this book was the lack of a secondary plot. Everything is very linear, including the direction of the hunt for Peter. In a certain way Gamache and Beauvoir are going through the motions, and in much the same way of my other least favorite, A Rule Against Murder, we are kept almost entirely away from Three Pines and its residents. The portions of the book which interested me were when Penny went poking around in the psyches of our characters, but we get less and less of it as the book continues.
The language, however, is delicious and Penny finds ways to insert food into her narrative to describe locations and character moods. The characters are richly developed and beautifully layered that you will want to return time and again and Penny charmingly and closely describes some new enchanting food in each chapter. I’m not kidding, of the 41 chapters in this book I think 39 had some glorious description of exquisite food, just enough to add some lightness to the book as well as make the reader hungry.
This was the final Ralph Cosham narrated Gamache book, and I will miss his work greatly. His voice is the voice of Three Pines for me, and I hope to be able to read the next few books in his voice.
This book was read and reviewed as part of the charitable Cannonball Read, where we read what we want, review it how we see fit (within a few guidelines), and raise money in the name of a fallen friend for the American Cancer Society.
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