Redheaded Reviews: The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

This book is different than Penny's other books in that there is no murder to be solved. Instead, they are looking for Peter Morrow, Clara's husband who has failed to show up at the agreed upon year date of their separation. Clara became very upset with Peter when his jealousy of her art career taking off started to destroy their marriage, so she told him to go away for a year and have no contact with each other and come back on that exact date and see where they were. Only Peter didn't show up and now weeks have passed and he still hasn't shown, so Clara has gone to Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide of the Surete in Quebec.

Gamache retired to the town of Three Pines for a reason. He was sick of death and chasing down murderers. And when Clara comes to him he is nervous about helping her but she is his friend and he will help her because of this. He calls in Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir to help. The thing he has to agree to is that Clara will be in charge of the investigation, which he willingly concedes either out of the need to make her feel comfortable or the need to make himself feel comfortable. Or both.

Peter, it turns out went to Paris to stay with a Downs Syndrome colony for a while, then headed to Florence, then Venice, then oddly enough Dumphries, Scotland. It turns out that while he was in Scotland he visited a place called The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, which is a private park open only one day a year where art meshes with nature in a scientific and mathematical way and where rabbits appear in a circle and then turn to stone then disappear. They find this out because Peter left five paintings with his sister's kid. These paintings are unlike anything he has done before. They are truly awful but they are full of emotion which his other paintings lacked.

Peter then went to Toronto and visited his old art school and then he went to Quebec City and withdrew some money and disappeared. That was four months ago. So, Clara and Myrna, the bookstore owner and former psychologist, go to the art school and meet with the professor Peter did, Professor Massey a sweet man who told them about what Peter and he talked about including Professor Norman, a talented painter, who Massey had convinced the school to hire and who had then started to espouse crazy talk about a tenth muse and become quite angry with the students if they disagreed with him on this topic. He also created the Salon des Refuses where those whose creations did not make the art show were displayed as the failures they were for all to see. That was really the last straw and he was fired.

As Gamache looks at Peter's painting he recognizes a place in one of the paintings as being the St. Lawrence River and there's an artist colony up in that area at Baie-Saint-Paul which would likely be where Peter would have gone. When they get there the owner of a gallery Marcel Chartrand offers them a place to stay when all the area B and Bs and hotels have been booked up and offers to help with their investigation as he met with Peter when he was there. But Gamache and Beauvoir are suspicious of him and think he is holding out on them.

What was Peter doing there and where did he go from there? Is he alive? Peter's paintings provide a signpost to where he has been but there are only five of them. Clara is desperate to find Peter but unsure of what her feelings are toward him. She needs to see how he's changed before she can make a decision on how she feels toward him. There are plenty of shady characters in this book and odd places where Peter went to paint. I'll be honest. I've never liked Peter as a character. He has always treated Clara poorly and he's a bit of a stiff. So a book devoted to him is not my cup of tea. This book is different than Penny's usual fare in that there's no dead body and murder to solve, just a missing person to find. It should be a nice change of pace and feel refreshing, but maybe because it's Peter they're looking for it's not. The book is plodding and devoid of suspense, but still beautifully written. So I give it three out of five stars.

Link to info about the Garden of Cosmic Speculation: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/garden-of-cosmic-speculation and pictures https://www.google.com/search?q=garden+of+cosmic+speculation&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfupu8w_TdAhUHuVMKHTj3BcoQsAR6BAgCEAE&biw=1600&bih=709

Quotes
“When life gives you lemons…” he said. “It gave you lemons. Thankfully, it gave me Scotch.”

-Louise Penny (The Long Way Home p 19)

It looked grotesque, gut then great food so often did. Never mind what the chefs tell you, she thought, as she took a bite. All the best comfort food looked like someone had dropped the plate.

-Louise Penny (The Long Way Home p 121)

“Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction. Picasso said it, and it’s true. We don’t build on the old, we tear it down. And start fresh.”

-Louise Penny (The Long Way Home p 153)

“How odd,” said Clara. Beauvoir didn’t know why she was surprised. Most artists he’d met shot way past odd. Odd for them was conservative. Clara, with her wild food-infested hair and Warrior Uteruses, was one of the more sane artists. Peter Morrow, with his button-down shirts and calm personality, was almost certainly the craziest of them all.