The Kingdom of the Blind, Louise Penny, author, Robert Bathurst, narrator
When Chief Superintendent Gamache and Myrna, both receive a letter from a solicitor that summons them to appear at the home of Bertha Baumgartner, they are stymied. They have no idea who the person is and wonder if they should even appear there. Eventually, they do both go and discover each other there, with a third unsuspecting visitor, Benedict, as well. All three have been asked to come to the home of someone who called herself the Baroness. All three claimed not to have know her. When they are asked to be liquidators of her will, they are stymied. Why them? In addition, to the confusion, they must agree to take the job as liquidator before the will is even read. All three decide that they are game, and so the story begins.
Mrs. Baumgartner left a fortune to her three children, Hugo, Caroline and Anthony, in money and real estate. However, no one knew if it really existed. Her home was in terrible disrepair, and she was known as a cleaning lady. It came out that the family had been involved in a lawsuit with the Rothschild’s for decades. Was she really a Baroness? When the simple liquidation of the will turns into a murder investigation, Gamache is in the unique position of having to investigate both the murder and the background of the family. Is there a fortune? Who committed the murder and why?
Meanwhile, at the same time, Gamache is being investigated because of the part he played in the capture of drug lords. He made a decision to allow deadly drugs into the market place in order to capture them. Someone had to pay for that crime. If the deadly drugs got out, death would follow on a huge scale. Therefore, while he is being investigated, he is quietly investigating the whereabouts of the drugs as well. He knows his position is in jeopardy, whether or not he finds them. The politics involved was frustrating and it began to affect Jean-Guy Beauvoir, Gamache’s son-in-law. He was in a very compromising position, having worked alongside of Gamache in the drug debacle and was asked to betray him.
Eventually, every loose end is tied up neatly, but I had to listen to several parts over and over so as not to lose the connection to the whole. Gamache remains, throughout, the lovable, gentle, humble and understanding character that he always is, Reine-Marie, his wife, is always supportive by his side. The town, the characters and the tales about Three Pines are unique and they embrace the readers and instill the desire in them to make Three Pines their home too! Even though the characters are quirky and out of the mainstream, they are united in the effort of caring for each other. It makes it a perfect place to live.
I love the Louise Penny Inspector Gamache mysteries. The narrator who reads the audios is perfect for the job. He never interferes with the message, but relays it to the reader on point with perfect tone and stress. This particular mystery in the series, however, seemed a bit disjointed to me. The plot seemed very convoluted. There were so many threads it was hard to keep track. There was the question of the settlement of a strange will and an investigation into the background of the deceased to find out if she was indeed from an aristocratic background with a large estate to be settled; there was a possible embezzlement investigation and a murder investigation that grew out of it; and there was an investigation into Inspector Gamache because of his recent drug bust which allowed a deadly drug to possibly hit the streets with dire consequences. This meant there was also an investigation into the drug world, concurrently, hopefully to find the missing drugs before they hit the street to prevent an untold number of deaths. On a lighter side, there was the inclusion of one of Clara’s paintings, for no known apparent reason, in the home of one of the heirs. It was an unusual one of Ruth, the unusual poet who loved her duck, Rosa. Then too, there were some odd budding romances at the end which I didn’t suspect, and big changes for the future of the Gamache family were predicted.
I, for one, can’t wait for the next Inspector Gamache novel to appear!

I have read all 14 of the books in this series. As with any series, some are better than others. This one has to be one , if not THE best. Just when you get to the end and think everything is settled, there are more surprises on the last three pages. Excellent read.