THE MURDER STONE

TITLE: THE MURDER STONE
AUTHOR: LOUISE PENNY
Pages: 312
Date: 30/01/2009
Grade: 5+
Details: no. 4 Inspector Gamache Mystery
Library

Inspector Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, are on holiday at Manoir Bellechasse, a beautiful hotel in the middle of nowhere. Also staying in the hotel are the Finney family, a group of people who appear to actively dislike each other.
Then, in the aftermath of a terrible storm, one of the Finney siblings is found murdered, crushed to dead under the statue of her father.
Gamache, already at the location, takes charge of the investigation, the biggest mystery of which is not the who and/or the why but how the heavy statue came of its pedestal.
This was a wonderful mystery, well plotted and intriguing, even if I did figure out the how fairly early on.
Louise Penny is one of those rare and very special authors who not only produce a great mystery but also a fabulous novel, filled with a setting and characters that feel real and I would love to know better.
On a side note; although this mystery wasn't actually set in Three Pines, that lovely village does feature, as do some of its inhabitants.