Thriller set in Québec (and across the border into Vermont)

2nd September 2017

Glass Houses by Louise Penny, thriller set in Québec (and across the US border into Vermont).

Glass Houses is the 13th book by Louise Penny in her Chief Inspector Gamache thriller series. As with all the other books, it is set in the imagined small village of Three Pines in the South East of Québec, close to the US border. Three Pines may be imagined, but the area isn’t. Tourism Eastern Counties (of Québec) merchandises it to tie in with the series… Look at their Three Pines Inspiration Map (below). The area and actual landmarks that feature in the books are well described… You can pretty much guess exactly where Three Pines would be situated (if it existed). Ideal for TripFiction aficionados!

The village is where Armand Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, live to escape the big city life of Montréal. It is a retreat surrounded by their friends… Then one day something very strange happens. A motionless figure in a black cape appears on the village green. He is sinister, but has broken no law – Armand cannot require him to leave. He is, though, recognised by one of the villagers for what he is – a cobrador. An old Spanish tradition has appeared in Three Pines. In modern day Spain a Cobrador del Frac is a debt collector who dresses in top hat and tails, carries a briefcase, and names and shames those who owe money by shadowing them for days on end. It works… the debt is usually settled to avoid further embarrassment. Louise Penny imagines the origin of the word, and takes us back to the Middle Ages where a cobrador she suggests was a figure dressed from head to toe in black who again quietly pursued those with something to hide. He was the Conscience. But what was a cobrador doing in Three Pines, and who was he trying to shame? Was there a Spanish connection?

The cobrador disappears and the same day a body is found. Chief Inspector Gamache (now actually Chief Superintendent Gamache) investigates. Who was the cobrador, why was he in Three Pines, and was he responsible for the murder? And what impact will the investigation have on tranquil and harmonious life of the village?

There follows a fast moving action-packed thriller, centring on the activities of a major criminal cartel and its business smuggling drugs across the Québec / Vermont border. Gamache and his team have long been on their trail and are determined to smash them. And there is, of course (without giving too much away), a connection with the cobrador and the murder. Not all life is not perhaps as it seems in Three Pines.

Glass Houses is a very impressive and well-constructed thriller. All the more so because it was written a very difficult time in Louise’s life. Her husband suffered from dementia, and died almost exactly a year ago. She wrote the book immediately before and after his death. She has written that Armand Gamache, a man of great character and kindness, was modelled on her husband, Michael Whitehead. There could not be a finer tribute.

Tony for the TripFiction team

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