A Better Man

A Better Man is the fifteenth Inspector Armand Gamache novel from Louise Penny, set in the small Quebec village of Three Pines and at the Surete du Quebec headquarters in Montreal where Gamache has just returned to active duty after the events of the previous book. Penny structures the novel around two major plot lines that develop in parallel through the early chapters and slowly converge as the case develops.

The first line follows the disappearance of a young pregnant woman whose father, a friend of Gamache’s son in law Jean Guy Beauvoir, refuses to accept that she has just walked out of her difficult marriage. He believes her abusive husband has done something to her, and he has come to the police looking for help that the husband’s connections seem determined to prevent him from getting. The second line follows Three Pines itself as a major spring flood threatens to overwhelm the village and the surrounding region. The two narrative threads weave back and forth as Gamache, Beauvoir, and their team try to find the missing woman while the rising waters provide both backdrop and ongoing crisis.

Louise Penny writes mysteries that take ideas seriously. The case in this novel is built around the deliberate question of intimate partner violence and the failures of legal and institutional systems to protect women in danger. Penny does not shy away from the difficult material, and the resolution of the case is more morally weighted than the genre typically allows. The flood plot, meanwhile, gives Penny room to bring the regular Three Pines cast into action in ways the smaller mystery storylines often cannot. The villagers come together to fight the rising waters in scenes that show the community Penny has been building across fifteen books at its most distinctive.

A Better Man also marks one of the major late series turning points for Beauvoir, who is preparing to leave the Surete for a private security job in Paris with his wife Annie and their young children. Longtime readers know what this means for the larger character arcs of the series.

For longtime Gamache fans, A Better Man is one of the strongest middle to late period entries. New readers should start at the beginning with Still Life.