The Beautiful Mystery

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8
Mystery
2012 Minotaur Books
Finished on June 23, 2019
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Québec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as "the beautiful mystery."

But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery's massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. But before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between.

Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac

(Photo Credit: Author's Website)

(Photo Credit: Author's Website)

(Photo Credit: Author's Website)

After I finished reading A Trick of the Light, I thought I would take a short break from this series, but the pull to read the next installment in Louise Penny's Inspector Armand Gamache series was too great and I couldn't resist the temptation to continue with my binge reading of these wonderful books.

As always, the writing is exquisite. 

Armand Gamache had expected to need a few moments to adjust to the dark interior. He hadn't expected that he'd need to adjust to the light.

Far from being dim, the interior was luminous.

A long wide corridor of gray stones opened up ahead of them, ending in a closed door at the far end. But what struck the Chief, what must have struck every man, every monk, who entered those doors for centuries, was the light.

The corridor was filled with rainbows. Giddy prisms. Bouncing off the hard stone walls. Pooling on the slate floors. They shifted and merged and separated, as though alive.

The Chief Inspector knew his mouth had dropped open, but he didn't care. He'd never, in a life of seeing many astonishing things, seen anything quite like this. It was like walking into joy. 

and

One after another, the monks walked in, singing. Frere Simon. Frere Raymond. And then, at last, Frere Luc.

And everything changed. His voice, not a tenor, not a baritone. Neither, yet both, joined the rest. And suddenly the individual voices, the individual notes were connected. Joined. Held in an embrace, as though the neumes had lengthened and become arms. and were holding each monk and each man listening.

 It became whole. No more wounds. No more damage. The holes became whole. The damage repaired.

Frere Luc sang the simple chant, simply. No histrionics. No hysteria. But with a passion and fullness of spirit that Gamache hadn't noticed before. It was as though the young monk was free. And being freed, he gave new life to the gliding, soaring neumes.

Gamache listened, struck dumb by the beautify of it. By the way the voices claimed not just his head, but his heart. His arms, his legs, his hands. The scar on his head, and his chest, and the tremble in his hand.

The music held him. Safe. And whole.

Frere Luc's voice had done that. The others, alone, were magnificent. But Frere Luc elevated them to the Divine. What had he told Gamache? I am the harmony. It seemed the simple truth.

Beside Gamache on the bench, Jean-Guy Beauvoir had closed his eyes, and felt himself slip away to that familiar world, where nothing mattered. There was no more pain, no more ache. No more uncertainty.

Everything would be fine.

And then, the music stopped. The last note died away. And there was silence. 

I was quickly drawn into the mystery and setting, happy to be back in the company of Gamache and Beauvior, both of whom continue to struggle with their own demons from a previous situation. However, as the story progressed, I found that I missed the characters from Three Pines and hoped the detectives would have reason to return. The narrative lost some of its tension midway through the novel, but eventually picked up again toward the latter part of the book. Ending with a bit of a cliffhanger, I'm eager to move forward and start reading How the Light Gets In. I'm also planning to do some further reading (and Youtube searches) on the Benedictine and Gilbertine monks and Gregorian chants, which sound very soothing and meditative. I wonder if the audio book includes any chants and especially look forward to re-reading this book on audio.