When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache was called out to the Canadian countryside to investigate a man hanging in the forest, he immediately believes that he is looking at a crime scene. While some of those around him see a man who ended his own life, Gamache looks at his pristine hands and thinks that the man did not climb up that tree himself.
Gamache and his crew find out that the man had been staying at the Inn and Spa in Three Pines, so Gamache heads there to start his inquiries. He finds out that Arthur Ellis had indeed been staying at the Inn. He had been alone, and the staff thought that he had seemed lonely. When Gamache searches his room, he finds that the man had left behind a note. It sounds like it could be a suicide note. But there are clues at the scene in the forest that point to murder.
When Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvier tracks down the man from his car, he finds that man lives in Ottowa and is not actually named Arthur Ellis. It’s Three Pines bookshop owner Myrna who discovers the meaning of the name. Arthur Ellis was Canada’s executioner. He worked under the name Ellis so that no one would no who he was outside of work. This stranger who was found dead in the forest had chosen that name for a reason. Gamache knows that if they can figure out why he had taken on the persona of an executioner, then they will find his killer.
The Hangman is a short story set in the world of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Three Pines in Quebec. Because it is a shorter piece than author Louise Penny’s usual stories of Three Pines, it doesn’t have the depth or the complexities of the other novels set in this world. It was written to be a short escape to Three Pines, or as an introduction to these characters, and I think it works well for that.
I am a big fan of Louise Penny, and this was a nice quick stop in Three Pines, but it did leave me craving more. I missed the connections she makes between the characters, and the way that Gamache seems to draw from literature and history and art and nature to form his conclusions. But The Hangman is a nice amuse-bouche for anyone wanting a taste of Three Pines, but it’s just a small bite of a far larger and richer banquet that is the experience of reading Penny’s full-length novels.
