
The Beautiful Mystery
A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
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Narrated by:
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Ralph Cosham
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By:
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Louise Penny
About this listen
Audie Award Nominee, Mystery, 2013
The brilliant new novel in the New York Times best-selling series by Louise Penny, one of the most acclaimed crime writers of our time
No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”
But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery’s massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. One of the brothers, in this life of prayer and contemplation, has been contemplating murder. As the peace of the monastery crumbles, Gamache is forced to confront some of his own demons, as well as those roaming the remote corridors. Before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between.
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Story
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret.
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Detection with a Difference
- By Lesley on 07-18-07
By: Tana French
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Granny
- By: Anthony Horowitz
- Narrated by: Nickolas Grace
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Twelve-year-old Joe Warden isn’t happy. Sure, he’s rich, but his parents don’t care about him. His grandmother should make everything better, except that Joe’s granny is a nightmare. She’s not just physically repulsive, she’s horribly mean. Everyone thinks she’s just a dotty old woman, but Joe knows the truth. He’s seen behind her mask and glimpsed the wicked glimmer in her eyes – she is pure evil.
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Unbelievable Hilarious
- By Deborah on 01-05-23
By: Anthony Horowitz
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The Highgate Cemetery Murder
- A Tate and Bell Mystery, Book 1
- By: Irina Shapiro
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Hours later, the man’s cold body lies in the city mortuary, alongside the woman he couldn’t save. And his sister, unconventional nurse Gemma Tate, tracks down troubled police inspector Sebastian Bell to unravel the truth. Sebastian has enough pressure to solve the murder of an aristocratic heiress without Gemma meddling in his case. But the cryptic sentences she brings him from her brother’s notebook could be a crucial lead. If only they knew what “milky way” meant.
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Not for the squeamish
- By Kristyn Rose on 06-29-24
By: Irina Shapiro
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Mydworth Mysteries 1-3
- A Cosy Historical Mystery Compilation 1
- By: Matthew Costello, Neil Richards
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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From the authors of the best-selling series "Cherringham". This compilation contains episodes 1-3. "A shot in the dark": Sussex, England, 1929. Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there considerably, when young Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his government posting in Cairo, with his unconventional American wife - Kat Reilly. "A little Night murder": A young poacher is found shot dead in the woods of a grand estate near Mydworth. A sad accident it would seem.
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Rather simple mysteries
- By Amazon Customer on 11-16-21
By: Matthew Costello, and others
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When No One Is Watching
- A Thriller
- By: Alyssa Cole
- Narrated by: Susan Dalian, Jay Aaseng
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block - her neighbor, Theo. But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear.
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Good Story
- By Queen Dee on 09-06-20
By: Alyssa Cole
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State of Terror
- A Novel
- By: Louise Penny, Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Narrated by: Joan Allen
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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After a tumultuous period in American politics, a new administration has just been sworn in, and to everyone’s surprise the president chooses a political enemy for the vital position of secretary of state. There is no love lost between the president of the United States and Ellen Adams, his new secretary of state. But it’s a canny move on the part of the president. With this appointment, he silences one of his harshest critics, since taking the job means Adams must step down as head of her multinational media conglomerate
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Wonderful story and great narration
- By Amazon Customer on 10-14-21
By: Louise Penny, and others
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Identity
- A Novel
- By: Nora Roberts
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Former Army brat Morgan Albright has finally planted roots in a friendly neighborhood near Baltimore. Her friend and roommate Nina helps her make the mortgage payments, as does Morgan's job as a bartender. But after she and Nina host their first dinner party—attended by Luke, the flirtatious IT guy who'd been chatting her up at the bar—her carefully built world is shattered. The back door glass is broken, cash and jewelry are missing, her car is gone, and Nina lies dead on the floor.
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Loved the new book
- By Jaimie Scarrow on 05-24-23
By: Nora Roberts
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The Quarry Girls
- A Thriller
- By: Jess Lourey
- Narrated by: Jess Nahikian
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games. Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.
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I can't
- By Brent Casey on 11-17-22
By: Jess Lourey
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The Word Is Murder
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Horowitz
- Narrated by: Rory Kinnear
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes, investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder, and a trail of bloody clues.
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Something New
- By Alice on 06-26-18
By: Anthony Horowitz
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On Mystic Lake
- A Novel
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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On the day her daughter leaves for college, Anne Colwater's husband of 20 years announces he wants a divorce. Her roles of wife and mother suddenly gone, Annie retreats to her childhood home of Mystic, Washington, to heal. There she finds her old friend Nick, suddenly widowed and unable to cope with his emotionally scarred young daughter, Izzie.
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Never been so disappointed
- By Anonymous User on 12-28-10
By: Kristin Hannah
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When She Was Gone
- By: Sara Foster
- Narrated by: Sophie Loughran
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Former London police officer Rose Campbell has been estranged from her daughter, Lou, for almost a decade. But when Lou disappears from a remote beach in Western Australia—and the police suspect her of kidnapping the two young children in her care—Rose is asked to help bring Lou home.
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Wonderful Characters, Gripping Story
- By Danielle Peck on 04-08-25
By: Sara Foster
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The Hallmarked Man
- A Cormoran Strike Novel
- By: Robert Galbraith
- Narrated by: Robert Glenister
- Length: 32 hrs
- Unabridged
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A new novel from Mulholland Books / Little, Brown and Company, publishing September 2025.
By: Robert Galbraith
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Ordinary Grace
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: Rich Orlow
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O’Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.
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Wonderful Wonderful - In Every Way
- By tooonce72 on 03-29-13
What made the experience of listening to The Beautiful Mystery the most enjoyable?
The unique setting; the use of more humor than usual by the author but always in the right setting and which never takes away from the drama of the story itself; the well-defined characters and the interplay that occurs between them; and, as always in a Louise Penny novel but especially in this one, the feeling of evil wending its way throughout the story, maybe just around the next corner, but never where you expected to find it.Who was your favorite character and why?
There were several great characters, as usual in a Louise Penny mystery, but in the end it was Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. His powerfulness of character, his intellect, and even his frailness are front and center in this novel.What about Ralph Cosham’s performance did you like?
His performance never takes over the novel, never interrupts it; he is flawless.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I cannot answer this question without giving away part of the plot, but I thought about this story -- am still thinking about this story -- long after I had finished listening to it.Any additional comments?
Wonderful.Hits You in the Head and Heart!
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Another element that I particularly enjoyed was the interplay of emotions among Gamache, Beauvoir, and Superintendent Francoeur. I had inadvertently read "How the Light Gets In", the following book in the series, before this one, so I knew something of the outcome, but that did not spoil anything for me.
If you are a Louise Penny fan, "The Beautiful Mystery" will not disappoint!
Another Great Read
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There's always a choice: will you choose to listen to the voice for calm, peace, and faith - the voice of God, or will you choose to listen to the voice of the Devil as he whispers lies in your ear, turning your calm to anxiety, your peace to pain and your faith to emptiness?
A good listen! A classic Penny, asking the big questions.
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Well Acted and Great Characters
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Liked learning history of this Era of The Catholic Church & Gregorian Chants.
Long & involved, but it kept my neurons firing.
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Not my favorite
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Although the story can stand alone, it may engage the reader more quickly if he/she have followed the Gamache novels. These characters tell a wonderful, new story, as they solve several immediate mysteries, but foretell of future mysteries.
I do think the performance would improve with a different reader. For me, I'd prefer to hear characters speak with different voices, not the same throaty, whispery voice for each character.
Well-titled book
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Astounding.
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I would place it in the category of "will mean more if you've been following the series."
It is a bit slow to get going - actually quite slow - however there is a mood to be set and such things take time. The basic story was good, but the thing that made the book truly great for me is how Penny has continued to develop her characters (in this book, Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir). At the point at which things come to a peak near the end, I was actually shaking with emotion - I'd become that involved!
I loved this book
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Monks, intrigue, isolation, murder, addiction
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