Louise Penny's "The Hangman" is a short story/novella that was published between the 6th & 7th Chief Inspector Armand Gamache full-length novels "Bury Your Dead" and "A Trick of the Light". It is part of a series called "Good Reads" where about a dozen Canadian authors have provided a short work for adult literacy promotion. You can see more about the program at ABCLifeLiteracy.ca. Note that this has nothing to do with the goodreads.com website.

The plot of "The Hangman" involves an apparent suicide by a visitor to Three Pines Village who is there under the assumed name of Arthur Ellis. Some might recognize that name from the Arthur Ellis Awards presented by the Crime Writers of Canada. Louise Penny herself won it for Best First Novel in 2007 for "Still Life" and for Best Crime Novel in 2011 for "Bury Your Dead". The likely lesser known bit of Canadian trivia revealed in "The Hangman" is that the Arthur Ellis Awards aren't named after an early Canadian crime writer but are instead named for the pseudonym used by Canada's Chief Executioner from 1912-1935 and by some others afterwards. This forms a major clue in the solving of the mystery.

"The Hangman" is a stand-alone work that doesn't require any background knowledge about Chief Inspector Gamache and his assistant Inspector Beauvoir or the characters in Three Pines Village where the short murder mystery takes place. The story is kept very straightforward without the several plot-lines and flashbacks that have been otherwise used by author Penny. The language is also at an easy reading level and the font size is close to Large Print Size. There are still enough red-herrings and investigative discoveries to be made for this to be an enjoyable read for Louise Penny and Chief Inspector Gamache fans.