The Grey Wolf

 The Grey Wolf the newest novel in the mystery series by the fabulous author Louise Penny.

I have written here multiply times how much I love Louise Penny and this series about the Canadian Surete Superintendent of Homicide, Armand Gamache.  The writing style is what makes her novels stand out.  These novels are written with beautiful prose and character development.  The mystery is always complicated and in depth keeping the reader guessing as the facts are being revealed.  

It is the characters; their feelings, their needs, likes and dislikes and interrelationships that are intriguing and very well developed that make these novels so compelling.  Jean-Guy Beauvoir, the second in command, who was a broken, angry young man who Armand took under his wing and nurtured, who is now not only his trusted employee, b ut also his son-in-law.  There is Isabelle Lacoste another trusted police officer whoh shares the leadership with Jean-Guy.  

But mostly there are the neighbors who live in Three Pines with Armand and his wife Reine-Marie.  The descriptions of Three Pines is what makes every reader of this series wish they also lived there.  It is serene and quiet.  It is cosy and warm, where everyone is friends and there is safety in their closeness. There is also a bookstore and the inn with an inviting restaurant where the food sounds delicious and the fire is always burning in the fireplace.

All of this works together to create the magic that makes readers wait so patiently for another nmystery novel to arrive on bookshelves.