Summer Reading

Recommended: Louise Penny's The Cruelest Month (St. Martin's Press, 2008), third in a series of mysteries featuring the Quebecois inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues. In this outing they investigate the sudden death of a woman at a seance in the small town of Three Pines, Quebec. Did she really die of fright? Or did something unnatural carry her off? Gamache doesn't believe that, but he keeps hitting dead ends, and a lack of cooperation in his attempts to get to the bottom of this creepy and well written tale. Meanwhile, someone seems to be out to frame him and destroy his career. A good story, an unusual setting, well-drawn characters, including a psychic and a doctor who tries to save a little duckling, and some real surprises.