The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #10) [B1677]

2015 PB in nice clean condition. Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Quebec, has found a peace he'd only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole." While Gamache doesn't talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache's help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There's power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her. Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Quebec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence river. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it the land God gave to Cain. And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads mixed reviews: "Very slow, but well written. Very literary, but a bit repetitive in the symbols. The mystery wasn't very interesting. However, it was a good way to show Gamache's recovery from the trauma of the previous book, slow and quiet."; "Crying. She does know how to write an ending"; "A lot of other reviewers did not like this book, but for me this was an interesting and good departure from the normal sort of 'formula' other Inspector Gamache books take. As an artist who went to art school, I enjoyed the social dynamic case study of artists, and unique clues and asbestos mystery. I also liked the step forward Clara took. It made a lot of sense to me to have Gamache and Beauvoir sit back because of how intense the last book was. Maybe I'm also just an extremely loyal Louise Penny fan."; "I find it difficult to respond to my emotions with this story. The Long Way Home is a story of love, hope and dreams all shattered but redeemed in the end. I'm teary-eyed."