Louise Penny ventures out of Three Pines in The Beautiful Mystery, her eighth novel featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, but the change of setting doesn't faze Ralph Cosham, the narrator of many of the audiobooks in the series. Cosham's approach enhances the reverent tone while still plucking Penny's ripe humor from the vines that weave their ways throughout the dark plot. Penny has a gift with dialogue, and Cosham makes that gift pop for the audience.
Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir go where no layman has before: the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. The monks are famous for singing Gregorian chants, and while Penny does not write much for Cosham to sing, what he does harmonize is rich and soothing, an earworm listeners won't mind having stuck in their heads.
The French words and phrases peppered throughout the narrative roll flawlessly off Cosham's tongue, and he translates the starkly differing emotional effects of seclusion on each of Penny's main characters: Gamache is cloaked in wonderment; he finds freedom and release through introspection, connecting with his soul. Beauvoir, on the other hand, suffocates, slowly choking away his sanity.
The "Beautiful Mystery" from which this novel derives its name is the allure of the Gregorian chants. But there is no mystery about the allure of Louise Penny's series or the beauty with which Ralph Cosham continues to narrate it. This is a series that should be experienced at least once on audio, and The Beautiful Mystery is the perfect choice. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts