It's All in the Appearances

“The mystery story is two stories in one: the story of what happened and the story of what appeared to happen.”
― Mary Roberts Rinehart

The next line should be, "The great mystery writers can manipulate appearances without being dishonest with readers."

I just finished Louise Penny's book Kingdom of the Blind, an Inspector Gamache novel, which has a great premise -- the suspended head of the Sûreté du Québec finds himself drawn into the estate of someone he's never met. The elderly woman must have had her reasons for naming three seeming strangers as her executors.

Add to the requisite murder associated with the strange will is Gamache's intense need to locate a cache of drugs he's let loose on Canadians. While done in the interest of solving crimes in a prior book, the potential deaths weigh heavily on him. And the earlier decision has caused his suspension.

As I neared the end, I told a friend I knew she would enjoy it. Then the end arose and it turns out Penny had two unreliable narrators throughout the book. So, it wasn't just that what appeared to be was not. The author thought she would lie to her readers.

As much as I have enjoyed prior Gamache novels, I won't be able to read another. What's the point of being drawn into a plot when you are in a character's head but (throughout the book!) you don't know what the character knows?

A sleuth, professional or amateur, will often learn (or understand) something before the reader does, but the reader isn't kept in the dark for too long.

I wish books with the so-called unreliable narrator would have a stamp on the cover. Then I wouldn't waste my time.

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