Horrorshow

I just finished Louise Penny’s A World of Curiosities.

The publisher’s blurb doesn’t give away the real horror of the story but I will (more or less. Stop reading now if you plan on reading this 18th in the Inspector Gamache series).

A dead drug addicted prostitute is found. She was murdered and found dumped on the shore of a remote lake. Her children—a 13 year old girl and a 10 year old boy—had reported her missing.

It’s unclear why Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec is called to investigate a seemingly simple murder in an hours away, rural area of Québec. Can’t the local cop shop handle it?

Nope—her killing is a major (and clumsy) plot device. Gamache had to, randomly, choose to take on this investigation for the story to happen. Ya see, it’s quickly discovered that the murdered woman had pimped out her own children and filmed it. Also, the local badge boys, including the district’s chief, were some of her biggest customers.

Horrifying and supremely enraging to say the very least.

I expected the book to be about the investigation into the mother’s murder and the sanctioned, extreme abuse of the children. Was she offed because she mebbe kept a copy of the rape films and tried out a bit of blackmail?

I wanted excruciatingly slow, painful justice dished out. Did I get my wish? No.

Yes, the demonically vile cops were caught and arrested. It happened dramatically but fast and far too easily. Was the entire police force disbanded? Even if some individuals didn’t take part in raping the children, they knew it was happening and didn’t come forward. They acquiesced—gave tacit approval. All of them needed to be charged, publicly flogged and imprisoned. I can only imagine what went down since Penny didn’t bother to include that bit of the tale.

What happened to the children? How did they recover from the extreme damage inflicted on them? Was recovery possible? This was sort of, more or less answered at the book’s end. First though, the story made a seismic shift and became all about another character to whom the children were tangentially related.

Turns out, the appallingly heinous abuse of the children was no more than a plot device—a way to bring the BIG main villain on stage (and provide him with henchmen). Ya know, I get that the author wanted to give the, now adult, children a backstory. There had to be a reason, an explanation as to how they became so profoundly twisted. Could Penny have found other root causes for their fucked-upness? Couldn’t something else have been the catalyst for the children’s warped and sadistic personalities? Couldn’t she have thought up another cause than a drug and booze addicted hooker mama pimping them out to the local, grotesquely corrupt gendarmes?

I mean, abuse is abuse—it’s all heinous—but this extreme sexual exploitation and violence? That was some devastating horror show shit. To use it as a narrative tool was WAY over the top.

Wouldn’t merely having a neglectful, addict mother and absent father been enough? Add in a soupçon of genetically endowed psychopathy and we’re all set. Right?

On one hand, I understand that Penny wanted to use an emotionally powerful hook. On the other, the kid’s story could have, should have been the whole book. Even if the children didn’t emotionally recover and still ended up in jail, their redemption (or lack thereof) arc was the tale. I didn’t give a fuck about the main villain who came in and took over. Once she minor charactered the boy and girl, I checked out—just skimmed the rest of the book.

Penny has another installment in the Inspector Gamache series coming out in 2024. Up until this 18th book, I’ve loved them all. Now? I’m not so sure I’ll take her 19th outta the library.