Sunday, October 3, 2021

Another book review


I just finished Louise Penny's latest Armand Gamache mystery novel. She wrote it during the COVID lockdown and chose the setting in a post-COVID year. I think I would call it a medical ethics theme. A professor of statistics has developed a philosophy, based on the COVID pandemic experience, of a kind of survival of the fittest by advocating legislation allowing/assisting medically or developmentally fragile people to die. She brings her national campaign to Three Pines to give a speech at a local university and the story, including new and old murders, erupts from there.

What is really captivating about it, beside the usual cast of delightful and quirky characters of Three Pines, is the contemporary issue that Penny proposed as a topic for universal consideration---a fascinating offshoot of the experiences and conversations we all have had with the pandemic. Can you say "underlying conditions"?  Or how about "assisted suicide" from some 3-4 decades ago? 

BTW: The latest Daniel Silva book also incorporated the COVID reality into its storyline. 

1 comment:

  1. How wonderful for you to highlight one of Canada's best mystery writers!!!

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