It's another locked-room-mystery-esque entry! And I am here.for.it. Much like "A Rule Against Murder," which I really enjoyed, "The Beautiful Mystery" takes us away from Three Pines to a remote location where the murderer MUSTBESOMEONEINTHISROOM. I love these stories, I think they're the richest for the reader because they give the best chance to work out the killer for ourselves with a limited suspect pool and setting.

Speaking of the setting—that was another really beautiful (heh) and unique aspect of this book. A completely off-the-grid monastery? Wouldn't have pegged it as a perfect murder setting, but it had enough old-timey creepiness and sinister singing to serve the story perfectly. Our main characters even get locked in themselves! Can't beat it.

Outside the murder mystery, this book also ramps up a thread that's been running through the entire series—the escalating conflict between hero of my heart Gamache and Chief Superintendent Francoeur, whom Gamache clearly should've arrested when he had the chance. This storyline has been hinted at and almost teased throughout the series, and I'm glad that in this book it finally seems to be coming to a denouement. I can only take so much innuendo/hinting, and I'm kind of itching to get the main event over with already and find out what's going on.

So we still don't know what Francoeur is up to in this installment, only that it's very bad indeed. We DO know that Beauvoir is sort of slipping off the deep end

Spoiler

after the factory disaster that left him with an opiod addiction and an axe to grind with Gamache for "leaving him to die" (which I think is super bogus but w/e I'm not Beauvoir)

, and when these two storylines converge all hell truly breaks loose. This narrative sort of takes over the book, and the one point of frustration I had here is that the intriguing murder is quickly wrapped almost as an aside to the building tension among the Sûreté officers. I thought the murder deserved a little more time and explanation; not that it wasn't a satisfying conclusion, but it felt rushed.

Lightning-speed end notwithstanding, this might be the most *important* book of the series so far because of how it ends, and what it sets up.

Spoiler

We come out of this book with a major rift between Gamache and Beauvoir, courtesy of Francoeur and his use of drugs to manipulate Gamache's second-in-command. Again, we don't know where it's heading, but we know it's part of a larger and more sinister plot. And now that this critical relationship has been torpedoed, I'm excited that we're finally on the path to solving this larger mystery (I hope) once and for all.

I've said this before, but a quick aside: I appreciate how Penny includes backstory we've already heard but may have forgotten without totally rehashing old plots. It's a hard thing to do, but she reminds us exactly what we need to know without overdoing it and I greatly appreciate the gentle memory jogging. That said, you still must read these in order to get the full experience.

Excited to see where we're headed. :)