Book #123: A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

I was kind of feeling a book hangover after the last Inspector Gamache novel so I downloaded this one as an e-book to read over the last few days. These books are addicting. And I think the reason why they are addicting is because of the characters, not necessarily the plots. Whereas the last book, Bury Your Dead, was super complicated with three different mysteries intertwined, and had a really interesting theme with Gamache dealing with his failures and mistakes in a massive firefight with the Surete du Quebec, this book was back to being a pretty standard murder mystery with one story and one solution. A woman is murdered in Clara Morrow's backyard and Gamache and Beauvoir have to solve it, and after questioning lots of people they finally do. Some of the actions of minor characters in this story seemed a little bit unbelievable (like, why would the murderer come back to the town and hang around?) but it was still a good read. I liked some of the sub-plot elements more--like the development of Clara and Peter Morrow and how she has become more famous and successful as an artist than he is and how she finally realizes the depth of his jealousy and insecurity towards her success. And Beauvoir's descent into addiction to opioids after all the wounds he sustained during the fight, and his delusions he's holding towards Gamache after watching the video again and again. Those are the elements of the story that keep bringing me (and other readers) back for more, because you can't wait to see what's going to happen to these beloved and interesting characters next.