Kingdom of the Blind

I can never really do Louise Penny justice.  Her books are written with such beautiful, moving and flowing prose.  They are a pleasure to read even before you get to the fact that she writes a believable, beguiling and intriguing mystery plot in each one. 

This is a series that I look forward to reading as soon as each new book is released.
I put aside all other work, reading and activities to immerse myself in the world of Three Pines and become apart of the group that gathers at the bistro owned by Gabri and Oliver.  I look forward to conversations over dinner with Reine Marie and Armand either around their table or their neighbor, Clara's.  As Ruth and Myrna join the Chief Inspector and his daughter, Annie and her husband the Chief's second in command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

Oh, to feel that kind of connection to a group of friends in real life.  It seems like it would be the perfect life.

Again in this mystery novel, Penny tackles current day issues and modern problems.  The opioid crisis and electronic banking and money schemes.  Picking up where she left off at the end of the last book, drugs are being released on the streets that can kill the addicts who live day to day.  Gamache seems to be responsible because of the way he did not arrest all the dealers at the end of Glass Houses.

Also interspersed with the plot is the death and will of an old woman in a nursing home, who called herself the Baroness, though she cleaned houses in her younger days.  She has named Gamache, Myrna and another young man the liquidators of her estate.  This is an unusual occurrence and it starts the digging into of the people involved.  Two separate plots running concurrently, until though as a reader you may have some theories, they will be uncovered all in good time.

The prose is incredible, with examples like where he thinks back to the last tragedy he lived through with his police officers,: "But leaving was hard.  Especially his agents, men and women whose lives were lost because they followed his orders.  Followed him. He'd felt, for a long time, that he owed it to them to not leave that place of sorrow. To keep them company there....Their lives could not be defined by their deaths.  They belonged not in perpetual pain but in the beauty of their short lives."
So many connections to the word blind.  People being blind when they are dealing with other people. Being blind to your emotions, being blind to people's lies, being blind in a snow storm or being blind when something physically affects your eyesight.

So beautifully crafted.  I will say that Penny has built up her talent and I have become so attached to these characters, I feel like I know them.  I was moved to tears at the end of this book.  That is a first when reading a mystery novel. 

Blackbird Fly

I admit that I picked this book to listen to because the main character and I share a first name.  That is unusual for me to find in books.  So I listened. It was fun to hear my name and the plot line is interesting and keeps you interested trying to figure out the mystery.  It just moved extremely slowly.

The story seemed stretched out interminably and I was like lets get to the solution way before the book got there.  The narrator's voice is pleasant to listen to and the story line is interesting about wine country in France and the small village where Merle finds herself, after her husband's death, having inherited a small house there.  The description of the house and fixing it up and the death of an old woman keep you reading.  You do want to find out who the woman was and how Merle and her son will succeed in fixing up the house and if they will live there.  I do think that some of the loose ends are not sufficiently tied up at the end.  Some answers are not clear, but all in all I enjoyed listening while I walked and while I drove to meetings.

The book is written by Lise McClendon and narrated by Denise Stradling. 

•