If you wish to begin a warm, funny, thrilling literary relationship, then pick up one of Louise Penny’s series of crime mysteries featuring her protagonist, Armand Gamache. You must beware and be warned: once you read one, you will feel strongly compelled to read the entire series. At present, here is the sixteen book series, in order:

Still Life
A Fatal Grace
The Cruelest Month
A Rule Against Murder
The Brutal Telling
Bury Your Dead
A Trick of the Light
The Beautiful Mystery
How The Light Gets In
The Long Way Home
The Nature of the Beast
A Great Reckoning
Glass Houses
Kingdom of the Blind
A Better Man
All The Devils Are Here

The titles are usually drawn from various literary allusions, and have themes that are woven through the story, often reflections on some aspect of the nature of good and evil in our society, world, individuals.

Armand Gamache has risen through the ranks of the police in the Surete du Quebec, which serves the province and is headquartered in Montreal. Armand and his wife Reine-Marie live in the fictional village of Three Pines, located south of Montreal, on the border with Vermont, deep in the rural landscape. Three Pines is a Shangri la, a warm, inviting place where neighbors care for each other, enjoy each other’s company, and each contribute to creating a caring, safe community. Evil occasionally finds a way to infiltrate this hallowed place, although Gamache and his neighbors and friends will not allow it to take root. We get to know each of the characters of this town, and you will come to feel you have always known them, they are that real, amusing and entertaining.

Gamache is a man of appealing opposites: literary and imaginative, a lover of poetry, he is also hard and practical when confronting evil. A gentleman with perfect manners, but not effete, mannered or posturing, his manners show his genuine caring and consideration for others, the soul of manners. A relentless interrogator and pursuer of truth on behalf of victims of evil, he can have at once genuine kindness and steely cold doggedness, as the situation demands. Physically strong and even imposing, he can also be mistaken for a college professor rather than a chief investigator of murder. Courageous, morally and physically brave, a true leader, with great sensitivity and empathy toward the failings and flaws of all, ever willing to reach out a hand and give an unlikely colleague a chance to rise to their potential when he sees something good and pure in their character, Gamache is an ideal in many ways; if he sounds too good to be true, he likely is—Penny set out to create a hero she could enjoy endlessly writing about, spend much time with, indeed years. He is her ideal man, and may become yours. His marriage to Reine-Marie is to be envied— a true and deeply felt love, they are soulmates, sharing a warm, rich life together. Their children, Daniel and Annie, are each married and have young children of their own. Annie married her father’s close colleague, Jean-Guy, while Daniel married and moved to Paris, seemingly to get away from his parents and start his own life. All is not perfect in Gamache’s private world. He lost his parents at age 9, and as an orphan, was raised by his grandmother and godfather, Stephen Horowitz. The present novel moves the action to Paris, as the Gamaches visit their children, anticipating Annie’s imminent delivery of their next grandchild, a daughter. This novel will explain Armand’s troubled relationship with his son, Daniel, and also the nature of his relationship with godfather Stephen Horowitz; we’ll learn more about Horowitz’ complex past, and how he came to his role in Armand’s life.

All the Devils Are Here is not the best novel to read to enter into the Gamache world, as the action is entirely in Paris, removed from Three Pines, the focus of most of the books. I first read A Great Reckoning, and have read five of the sixteen books thus far. I intend to go back to the beginning and read forward the entire series, as it is that appealing and riveting. Each book digs deeper into the nature of evil in individuals, and society. All the Devils explores greed, individual as well as corporate, how it attracts and captures people, how the slippery slope of moral compromise can lead to accepting the deaths of thousands of innocent lives. This was Horowitz’s battle within the corporate world, a mission Gamache must complete on behalf of his beloved parent figure. In each novel, you will find woven in historical detail of place, musings on art, architecture, and literature, reflections on aspects of society. None are lectures, but form thematic threads that give more depth and meaning to the story, more realness and complexity to the action. I have not said much about the crime and murder found in each book—it is there in great, if not lurid detail. These are murder investigations as a lover of the genre comes to expect, fast paced, mentally challenging, absorbing. Seemingly mundane investigations of details under time pressure builds and accumulates until violent confrontations with malfactors burst forth, requiring brave, dangerous action. These scenes, juxtaposed with the serenity of Three Pines, or the thoughts of Gamache, create a building and releasing of tension, an acceleration and deceleration of momentum, that Penny masterfully manages as the plot develops.

Having read many authors of the genre, I can confidently say that Penny is a master, and her books are deeper and richer than many in the genre. Pick up one of the series, and start a healthy addiction. You will learn a lot, enjoy the exploration, and the adrenaline charge of justice pursued. The village of Three Pines and its delightful neighbors will be your new literary best friends.