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The Long Way Home

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, 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 Québec. 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.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 2, 2014
      In Edgar-finalist Penny’s perceptive, perfectly paced 10th mystery featuring Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Quebec Sûreté (after 2013’s How the Light Gets In), Three Pines resident Peter Morrow has pledged to show up for a dinner with his wife, Clara, exactly one year after their separation. When Peter fails to materialize on the appointed day, Clara fears that he has either found a new woman—or died. Clara turns to Gamache for help in locating Peter, who appears to have adopted a new approach to painting during his time away from her. Over the course of the intriguing search, Penny offers real insight into the evolution of artistic style as well as the envy that artists feel about each other’s success. At times, the prose is remarkably fresh, filled with illuminating and delightful turns of phrase (e.g., Clara notices “her own ego, showing some ankle”), though readers should also be prepared for the breathless sentence fragments that litter virtually every chapter. Agent: Teresa Chris, Teresa Chris Literary Agency.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Ralph Cosham is back for the tenth installment in Penny's beloved Three Pines mystery series, featuring Armand Gamache, chief inspector of homicide of the SŸreté du Québec. Although ostensibly retired and still healing from the physical and emotional injuries incurred on his last case, Gamache agrees to help Clara, his friend and neighbor, track down her estranged husband. Slipping smoothly from French to Canadian accents, Cosham flawlessly conveys each character's distinct personality, particularly the quiet, thoughtful Gamache as he gradually becomes involved in the missing person investigation. With pitch-perfect rhythm, Cosham pulls listeners irresistibly into the chief inspector's world of art, jealousy, and murder. The pairing of Cosham's narration with Penny's writing continues to be one of the most fortunate matches for audiobook fans. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      Starred review from October 15, 2014

      Penny (How the Light Gets In) again engages her wonderfully drawn characters in a psychological mystery. Ralph Cosham returns as narrator, mesmerizing listeners as he spins Penny's tale of the search for local man Peter Morrow. Armand Gamache, now a contentedly retired member of the Three Pines community, is drawn into the mystery by Peter's wife, Clara, when Peter does not reappear as promised after a one-year separation. Penny's gift of incorporating spirituality, philosophy, occasional glimpses of magical realism, and, above all, fine character development into an intriguing psychological mystery results in a breathtaking conclusion. Don't be surprised if you really catch your breath and shed a tear or two. VERDICT A marvelous entry in a continually amazing series. Recommended to those who enjoy the character development, intricate plotting, and psychological elements in novels by Charles Todd, Craig Johnson, and Colin Dexter. ["Each inhabitant of Three Pines is a distinct individual, and the humor that lights the dark places of the investigation is firmly rooted in their long friendships, or, in some cases, frenemyships," read the starred review of the Minotaur: St. Martin's hc, LJ 7/14.]--Sandra C. Clariday, Tennessee Wesleyan Coll., Athens

      Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 27, 2014
      Officially retired, former chief of homicide Armand Gamache is at his beloved Quebec village of Three Pines, healing in mind and body after his ordeal in 2013’s How the Light Gets In, when a neighbor, celebrated artist Clara Morrow, asks him to find her estranged husband. Peter Morrow, also an artist, had departed Three Pines the previous year, promising to return on a specific day to discuss the status of their marriage. He didn’t make it and Clara is concerned. So is Gamache, who, as Penny has it, sees the shadow of murder even on sunny days. Thus begins a long, long journey during which Gamache, his loyal former assistant and now son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, Clara, and some of the other delightfully eccentric villagers have an assortment of adventures. Cosham, who has been this series’ narrator for a while, has a comforting, avuncular British accent. To this he smoothly blends in a French influence that becomes more apparent in his pronunciation of Canadian names, places, and Quebecois dialogue. Cosham voices Gamache with a wary, almost fearful caution as he approaches the new case, but as the search for the missing painter goes from Toronto to Paris to a desolate spot on the St. Lawrence River, his voice grows stronger as his energy level rises. Jean-Guy, too, sounds more assertive and alive. Cosham’s vocal interpretations are mainly subtle—Clara, for example, doesn’t sound very different from Gamache’s wife, Raine-Marie—but his version of the village’s eccentric old poet, Ruth, has a distinctive sharpness not unlike that of the latter day Katharine Hepburn. A Minotaur hardcover.

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