Thomas Griffin's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What do we expect from a Louise Perry mystery? A World of Curiosities has all the well-known ingredients of her series: chief inspector Armand Gamache, in charge of homicide in Montreal, and his trusted assistants, Three Pines, the village far away from the turbulence of the big city, and a case that initially looks simple, but turns out to be much more complex and challenging, requiring not only the full involvement of Gamache but also the support of the whole team.

In this instance, a serial killer becomes the detective’s highly intelligent and vengeful opponent. The more the reader gets involved in the complicated plot, the more s/he has reason to fear for the life of the detective.

For Perry, the unfolding of the story is always more than the search for the murderer, it is the clash between the forces of good and evil, between the strength of the social community and the irrational powers of destruction that can hide behind a cover of respectability.

Unlike the old-fashioned police detective, who is always above the crowd, Perry’s hero Gamache is struggling, dealing with forces larger and potentially more destructive than an individual criminal actor. Mysteries are about the violation and the final restauration of the social order. For Perry, however, there is the additional component of justice and the preservation of human bonds, especially those of family and friendship. 

This is a fascinating novel with a light ironic touch, although it deals with serious, sometimes traumatic experiences. Once you start reading, you cannot put the book down. How does the author do it? We can think of The Robber Bride as a mock mystery.

There is no lack of criminal actions. A mysterious beautiful woman with an uncertain and dubious past intervenes in the lives of three Toronto women, taking away from them what they cherish most: their lovers and husbands, not to mention financial assets. That the bad woman finds a violent death at the end appears to confirm this reading. The threat has disappeared, and the heroines are reinstated in their rightful position. What is missing, however, is the traditional (male) detective who is expected to restore the social order. Instead, it becomes the task of the three women, a successful businesswoman, a professor of history (specializing in military history!), and a yoga teacher, to defend themselves, a task for which they are not well prepared.

In Atwood’s world, on the surface well-ordered, but controlled by the destructive power of Big Money, there are no save walls left when it comes to the survival of the family. The characters realize that they are not in control, but they learn to cope with this uncertainty. Atwood’s detached narrator challenges the readers but lets them know that her heroines will survive because of their inner strength.

This novel is a turn-pager, focused on a single but decisive question: Who killed  Reverend Tester, a Tennessee preacher with a double life? What initially appears to be a simple question, turns into an increasingly complex plot, filled with many characters on both sides of the law.

Pratt uses the familiar ingredients of a murder mystery, but he accelerates the tempo of the action and increases the involvement of the characters in the crime. His world is filled not only with violent criminals but also with corrupt policemen, dubious lawyers, and problematic judges who use trials for other purposes than justice. It is definitely a dark world where even his central character, the lawyer Joe Dillard, who is assigned to defend the murder suspect, struggles to stay on the good side of the law.

We could not be farther away from Agathe Christie’s Poirot, the detached detective, who restores the rule of law through his cerebral interventions. There is no safe place in this novel, not even for the reader, who follows the plot in a state of apprehension, hoping that at least in the end things will work out for the young woman accused of murder.