ramblingmads

Gamache receives a puzzling phone call at his home in Three Pines, instructing him to go to a remote, forgotten area in Quebec to find a dead body, a puzzling mystery unspools that tangles the past, present, and the future.

‘There’s a body in Lost Nation.’ But the line goes dead before Chief Inspector Armand Gamache can question the caller.

The head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec has no idea where Lost Nation is, or who woke him in the small hours of the morning at his home in Three Pines. What he does know is that the man was terrified.

When he and his team of Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste find both place and body, the situation only grows more bizarre. The unidentified dead man appears to be from an era more than a century old. He’s lying in a long-abandoned cemetery, on top of a grave with a date, but no name. 

Adding to the mystery, the early morning call appears to have come from Gamache’s friend and neighbour, Clara Morrow. While she denies any knowledge of it, it becomes clear there is some connection between her, the Morrow family, and Lost Nation.

Soon, Gamache and his team are faced with tracking down not just the legend of Lost Nation, but a lost ship, lost documents belong to an eccentric Victorian botanist, and a mysterious plant not seen in a century, that might save, or take, countless lives.

As the ghosts begin to gather, Gamache realises that the body on the grave is far from the only death. To solve the crime and avert catastrophe he must look to rancid secrets and old lies no longer dead and buried.

LOUISE PENNY is the #1 bestselling, multi-award-winning author of the Chief Inspector Gamache novels, set in her home province of Québec, Canada.

Her books, including State of Terror written with Hillary Rodham Clinton, have sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, topped international bestseller lists, including the New York Times, and been translated into 32 languages.

The recipient of both the Order of Canada and l’Ordre national du Québec, her country’s highest civilian honours, her Three Pines Foundation reaches out to those in crisis and offers financial and emotional support, with a special focus on literacy as well as dementia care.

Her husband, Michael, died of dementia in 2016. She lives with her golden retrievers Muggins and Charlie in a village south of Montreal.

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My thoughts: This is one of my favourite series, although I’m sure I want to move to Three Pines, there’s a lot of murder going around. But I love Gamache and his friends, I think foul-mouthed poet Ruth is my favourite character, she’s rather delightful.

This time the case starts with a phone call telling Gamache that there’s a body in Lost Nation in the early hours, not that whoever it is tells the detective what Lost Nation is. I love the way he involves not just his team at the Suretè, but also the residents of the village to get answers. 

The case involves a forgotten village, secrets, a plant and a botanist no one remembers, a tragedy that never seemed to be in the history books – in a way, it could be called All These Things We Have Forgotten. 

It’s absolutely compelling and fascinating, and while the plant at the heart of it is inspired by a real one, and a real botanist, that one doesn’t possess the incredible potential of the fictional.

Gamache and his brilliant mind have solved some shocking crimes, but this one is so twisted and convoluted that it almost defeats him and his team (professional and villagers) when the links between all the threads of the case don’t seem to be there.

Louise Penny is an incredible writer and really hooks you in, I raced through this book, desperate to understand all of the mysteries and strange coincidences that made this such a brilliant read.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

One of the world’s favourite detectives returns . . . for the final time?

Former Detective Hillary Greene has solved some of the toughest cases in Thames Valley Police’s cold case history. But this could be the one that breaks her.

Ten years ago, sixteen-year-old Angela Manning stepped off her school bus, and vanished. By morning, her broken body was found at the bottom of a disused Oxfordshire quarry. The inquest returned an open verdict. No murder weapon. No forensic evidence. Only one elderly witness, who glimpsed two shadowy figures standing on the cliff moments before Angela fell.

Now Hillary and her team must uncover what really happened that night. Angela was pretty, popular – and determined to become an actress. She dazzled the local amateur dramatics group she belonged to – but not everyone admired her confidence. Some loved her. Some envied her. And some had very good reasons to want her gone. Hillary and her team must retrace the schoolgirl’s final hours.

Because someone knows the truth about what happened on that lonely cliff edge. And they’ll do anything to keep Hillary from discovering it.

This is the case that Hillary’s boss, Superintendent Rollo Sale, has never been able to forget. Now he’s about to retire, he asks the cold case team to pull out all the stops. This could be Hillary Greene’s final investigation.

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Faith Martin was born in Oxford, and has spent all her life within twenty miles of the university city, even working at Somerville College for six years before turning to writing full-time.

Faith has been writing for nearly 30 years under four different pen names and has had nearly 50 books published so far. She began writing romantic thrillers as Maxine Barry, which Joffe Books are in the process of re-releasing as brand new eBooks. Then she turned to crime, and as Joyce Cato wrote classic-style whodunits, since she’s always admired the golden-age crime novelists.

But it was when she created her fictional DI Hillary Greene, and began writing under the name of Faith Martin, that she finally began to become more widely known. Her latest literary characters WPC Trudy Loveday, and city coroner, Dr Clement Ryder, take readers back to the 1960’s and the city of Oxford.

Having lived within a few miles of the city of dreaming spires for all her life, both the city and the countryside/wildlife often feature in her novels. Although she has never lived on a narrow boat (unlike DI Hillary Greene!) the Oxford canal, the river Cherwell, and the flora and fauna of a farming landscape have always played a big part in her life – and often sneak their way onto the pages of her books.

Her hobbies include walking her now ageing dog, wildlife-watching, reading and (reluctantly) gardening.

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My thoughts: Former DI Hillary Greene has been handed a case by her boss, it’s one he could never solve, the mysterious death of a sixteen-year-old girl ten years ago.

She wanted to be an actor and was the leading light of a local am dram society, but not particularly well liked. There’s actually quite a lot of suspects.

As Hillary and her colleagues re-interview the people who knew Angela best, and try to piece together her last day, and why she was at the quarry to begin with.

At the same time, it becomes clear that the cold case unit is going to be closed, Hillary has to figure out what she wants to do next, and it’s actually good timing for Claire, who is dealing with family problems, so this might be their last case. If they can solve it.

I’ve read several of the books in this series, they work pretty well as standalones as well as a series, the cases are always clever and the characters interesting, as it is here. The am dram group are all very unpleasant in different ways, and Angela was probably quite annoying. But not enough for someone to kill her, surely?

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

The police say Calvin Cross died naturally.

Former Scotland Yard detective Ember Lockhart lost her career following a scandal. Now working as a private investigator, she is hired by Amelia Cross to investigate her husband’s sudden death on a flight into Heathrow. Calvin had been frightened before he died, and the corrupted USB stick he left behind suggests he had good reason.

As Ember begins asking questions, she is followed, warned and threatened to abandon the case. With reluctant help from her former colleague and ex-lover, Leo Campbell, she traces Calvin’s death to a secretive technology company involved in political blackmail and corporate espionage involving an elaborate plan to destabilise the British government.

Then Amelia is murdered, and the evidence is carefully arranged to frame Ember. Charged with killing her own client, Ember must prove her innocence while pursuing an organisation prepared to eliminate anyone who gets in the way of their ultimate political goal.

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Deborah Stone is the best-selling author of four gripping psychological thrillers that keep readers turning pages late into the night. Her novels have won multiple awards and critical acclaim, establishing her as a standout voice in contemporary psychological suspense and thriller fiction.

Her new crime thriller, Buried In Silence, will be available for pre-order on September 30, 2026 and will be released on October 14, 2026. Her last release, Nowhere Man (October 3, 2024), is available in paperback, Kindle, and as an audiobook. It follows the success of Semi-Detached (April 3, 2023) which was recently honoured with the Chill With A Book Readers’ Award. Deborah’s second novel, Me and My Shadow, received the prestigious Chill With A Book Premier Award, given only to books that earn outstanding ratings across all reviewer categories. Her debut, What’s Left Unsaid, won the Runner-Up Prize for Best Book of 2018 in the same awards and remains a reader favourite.

In addition to fiction, Deborah is the author of the highly respected non-fiction guide, The Essential Family Guide to Caring for Older People, a finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2022. A recognised expert on elder care, Deborah frequently appears on BBC, ITV, Sky, and Channel 5, offering expert advice on aging, care planning, and family support. She contributes regularly to national newspapers and lifestyle magazines, helping families navigate the complexities of caring for older relatives.

She lives in London with her husband and their delightfully mischievous golden retriever.

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My thoughts: A man dies of an apparent heart attack on an aeroplane, his wife insists it wasn’t a natural death but the police disagree. So she hires former Detective Inspector Ember Lockhart to investigate.

What follows involves being framed for murder, explosions, boxes of offal, threats, kidnappings, senior members of the government, MI5, CEOs and millionaires determined to control the country. Not what Ember, or her former colleague Leo expected at all.

It’s all very heart racing and gripping as Ember, Leo and his subordinate Rohan attempt to untangle it all, find out who really killed Ember’s client and her husband and put a stop to the evil schemes of a rather vile rich and powerful person.

I really enjoyed this, I like Ember, she’s clever and headstrong, prone to charging full steam ahead into things, but Leo is there to rescue her and try to get her to rein in her impulsive nature. They make a good team, whether it’s hunting a killer or just dodging his nosey neighbour!

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.