Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

Louise Penny's latest book, A World of Curiosities, is packed with Mayhem, murder of women engineers, child sex trade coded items, witches, locker rooms, psychological secrets.

We even see Chief Inspector Gamache fumble a bit to control his temper and the emotional growth of his second in command, Beauvoir.

It's all here.

Let's welcome my guest, April Lidinsky.

She is one who never misses a clue.

Welcome.

So good to have you back.

You so much.

Well, we've got an exciting book.

We've got good food and we've got so much to talk with.

But let's start, first of all, with our menu.

What are we going to prepare?

I'm going to start with a very Canadian celebration, and that is a stovetop pudding made with maple syrup.

This is local to the Michiana area, but over 80% of the maple syrup comes from Canada, spiced with some cinnamon and easy to make in a very cozy, very cozy dessert.

There are a lot of scenes in this cute little bistro in Three Pines and I'm making a salmon tray because Gamache and his wife, loves to invite people for lunch or dinner.

They say, come after church for dinner, and they'll have they'll have salmon.

And it's all very cozy and very.

She makes it very easy, doesn't she?

Well, and that house becomes a character in the film there.

Space is a place that is invaded, is full of clues and a lot of the plot, which we will not reveal all of unfolds in that space.

Exactly.

So I will start with my salmon here, but we've got a lot of back stories in origin stories.

And actually it is a book that stand alone.

I mean, I've read some of them not in order, but tell us what we mean by origin stories.

Yeah, I think one of the pleasures of this book is that if you're new to Louise, Penny, you have the satisfaction of learning about the origins of many of the relationships.

If you have read all of Louise Penny's books like I have, and many of our fans have, there are reveals that are very interesting about the the case that brings together Gamache and Beauvoir to We understand that a little bit more.

It's the origin story of a murder that haunts the whole book, that haunts Gamache's career, and it's also the origin story of Three Pines and a wonderful story about women exiled and women triumphing.

So lots of lots of wonderful.

Lots in here.

And it just makes everybody wants to go up to Canada and find Three Pines.

It sure does.

And I think she's an amazing writer and she took a breath.

I guess she's writing now back again with her usual energy and is we're so glad we're so glad she's back, doing great books.

Now I am going to put out my salmon.

Then I'm chopping onion.

I have parboiled, some brussel sprouts and potatoes, and we will put a little olive oil on this and put it in the oven for about half an hour, 40 minutes.

It's why I parboiled the potatoes.

Sometimes things cook unevenly and you have to take the food out the open the oven and put the salmon in at the last minute.

And because you're cooking the potatoes and the onion and the Brussels sprouts much longer.

So we're talking about some of these these scenes in these themes.

I don't know where she gets all these themes, but we're building to we're going to build to a climax in the end of this book.

You won't want to miss that ending.

Well, in the psychological story here is more complicated, I would say, than another book.

So we get the one more origin story, and that is his relationship to the psychopathic killer, John Fleming, who is a master of disguise.

And one of the themes of the book, which you can actually see on the cover, is this sort of challenge of the clutter of so many details, so many characters modeled after a painting that comes to play a very large role in the book.

And at the.

End of it, it's sort of like another theme introduced when they take a wall down and they find this picture and and and Gamache is very, very worried about finding another person who is out to threaten him.

And we have that in the back of the story, too.

And the worry and that is a lot to worry about.

Oh, my gosh.

And the return of the children who have had a terrible childhood.

Their mother has been murdered and she groomed them for for sex trade and oh, that was to me, the saddest.

It is a very I think readers should be warned that it has some very heavy themes.

I think that, you know, the theme of redemption is also certainly something that we see here, the phrase Ca va bien aller Everything will be okay.

Plays again, again and again and again in these scenes.

And sometimes it's true and sometimes it's not.

And it's.

Right.

And I always I always find that phrase after a real some of these had a very difficult event in their life.

And somebody says, Oh, well, you'll be all right.

You'll be okay not knowing they're going to suffer, you know, for six months, a year, years maybe.

Oh, it's going to be all right.

I mean, I got a little tired of that.

But at the same time, some people do believe that and it does work sometimes.

Well, you.

Bring up an interesting point, and that is that the film or the book is sort of mixed a mix of science and belief and in science and engineering, but also magic.

There are people who utter sort of magic incantations like rabbit, rabbit, rabbit for good luck.

We see witches, possibly witches, maybe just very intelligent women who know how to work with herbs and know how to heal people.

And we see Gamache, who usually uses his intellect, kind of fall to his heart.

We see him weakened in some of these scenes, and he really is.

And sometimes you think, is this the beginning of the end?

Is he and is he kind of you were wearing out and should he be doing something else?

And in any case, he sticks with it and.

It takes both Beauvoir and Gamache to solve this mystery and other people as well, as well as Wren Marie, his wonderful wife.

I love that.

She's just so cool, isn't she?

She's just she's about ready to have her throat slit and she just looks at her husband with big eyes.

And you know what?

Oh, I just couldn't believe it.

How strong she was.

And it's the story's.

The story ends in a in a positive how If we don't know what she's going to do with the next line in her history of books, because the main character, the nasty, nasty one, is finally wiped out and we won't see him again.

I think we'll see.

The master of disguise.

Exactly that.

Yeah.

It's that kind of a sort of story, and I liked it very much.

I've read three of her books, and you've read all of them now.

She got me through the pandemic.

I read them in order and was very absorbed.

I think even for people who may not really appreciate murder mysteries or crime novels, which I don't, this the psychological complexity and the sweetness of the relationships and mentoring between Gamache and Beauvoir.

And in this book, really, Beauvoir mentors Gamache in ways that I think are really speak to what you.

See God as.

He's a little more seasoned.

Yes, indeed.

Well, I'm going to put my salmon dish in the oven and it will cook, probably cook for about 40 minutes.

And it's a wonderful dish.

She doesn't take very long and she serves it for lunch with friends.

This is Marie French Queen Mary.

Yes, Yes, she's Queen Mary.

So the action, did we talk about John Fleming at all?

Well, we can a little bit.

He's a psychopathic killer, that is seems to be behind this first murder that we see of Clotilda Arsenault, the mother of these children, And then he sort of disappears and then but kind of haunts the text and then seems to leave his calling card in various ways.

And our monkey Marsh knows him well enough to know that some of these mysterious things that are happening, the hidden painting, the invasion of his home, are in some way related to this man.

And but we don't know where he is.

And Gamache doesn't know where he is.

That's the thing.

And he's he's terrorizes everybody by not his presence, but his non presence.

How are you doing here?

Well, you know, as with any stove top pudding, you have to use both science and a little bit of magic.

I'm going to say rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

That this will thicken.

That's what you see here.

But I believe so.

It is thickened with four egg yolks and some cornstarch to stabilize it.

Then you finish it with just a little bit of butter.

You're going to have to finish it pretty quickly.

Tempus Fugit or Fusion?

Yeah.

I just want I just want you to get through the pudding and it.

And then it will chill for a little while.

You will chill and then you add some cream, I think.

Whipping the top.

And I will say also, if you have really nice cinnamon, I have some Vietnamese cinnamon from Epic spices in Chicago.

This is the kind of dish to really use your very best cinnamon.

It's I've heard about Epic that it's very, very good.

It's a tiny little, tiny little shop run by a family, and it's really worth visiting.

Well, let's see now, we've we've we've talked about what's happening here towards the end of the book.

We won't reveal what actually happens.

And as most books written now, it wraps up in two pages.

It does wrap up very quickly.

Quickly.

And I'm and I'm thinking, oh, I wish it had been a little bit more like this through the book, but I got bogged down in certain sections where the description went on and on.

And I, I think you have to get this in your in your glass, don't you?

Yeah, I will.

In just a moment here.

The I think all of those details are, you know, Louise Penny is putting us in the same position as our Gamache that we sort of don't know what the, what the red herrings are, what the meaningful.

Yes.

He is upset in this book.

He really is.

It seems even the two I read before he was more in control.

And I. I hope he gets a grip again.

Well, I think you're right that he's aging.

And of course, one of the things that we really enjoy about Gamache is that he's not just an intellect.

He has a real heart and especially for children.

And so that's the.

Children and his.

Wife.

Yes.

So Fleming knows exactly how to get him, and it's quite painful.

Well, listen, we've we've wrapped up our first section here.

We thank you for watching so far.

And you're going to well, chill these and be ready for dessert, right?

And then when our salmon is cooked in 35 minutes, we'll pull it out.

And in the meantime, we'd like to show you what our menu is today and then come back and join us.

So things are moving along.

We're going to have the pee and mint soup next, right?

Absolutely.

And I think I have salmon and vegetables cooked and I will be making a simple salad with a little bit of lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, put a little thyme in it and everything's going on a bed of chopped carrots.

So we are watching the end here.

You do that so well.

All right.

Still have all my fingers.

So now we've moved along in this book, as I said, so many characters, so many characters, so many things to solve.

And we are getting to the point where we're going to be talking about the the break in the demolition of a wall in the books over the bookstore in the village.

Yeah.

So there's the theme of Not Everything is what it seems.

There is a hidden.

A hidden room that becomes obvious to the woman engineer who understands the way things are built.

So again, this theme of women who know things.

Yes.

Comes out and also connections between.

Bricks.

Or things that could be male, could be used to build things or to kill people.

So, yes, we have all of that.

Bricks return over and over in here.

So we've got the the experience of Gamache and Myrna, the bookstore owner, noticing because of the women engineers that the roof line is not as it seems, and there's a hidden room that they cannot resist.

It is not too it seems there's another theme of Gamache Yes.

So what do they do?

Well, they break in and they find what they at first think is the famous 17th century painting, the past owned treasure.

But then Clara, the the town painter, recognizes that it can't possibly be the original and that it is a reproduction with uniquely shaped details that slowly become clear to our Gamache that these are clues about him, about his family, about his past.

And he begins to interpret it as a threat from the one person who knows him that well, and that is John Fleming.

John Fleming.

And all of a sudden the reader says, Where is John Fleming in all of us?

Where is he?

And we wonder, who have we already met him?

Is he here?

And so everybody gets a little bit tense.

I mean, I got really scared myself, and I was comfortable in Elkhart, Indiana.

But so she keeps us guessing for sure.

Oh, yes.

So I'm putting some peas here.

This is the mint and I break this down a little bit.

Mint and, uh.

And pea soup that could be served.

Cold or warm, chilled.

This is great.

I have a little broth.

We'll have this recipe on our website.

So go do some butter and leeks to start, and then we'll put this down and then blend it.

And then blend it.

Well, you know, so they they all go in there and look at this painting.

There is not really a painting, but in every time when they go back in, they see new things depending on what's been revealed or what is going on.

In the meantime, these two kids, they're kind of dashing around and getting into mischief more than mischief.

So the damaged children from the murder, that is the origin story for.

For this book.

Yes.

Book begin to be unreadable as unreadable to Gamache and Beauvoir as it is to.

Us, because we know they have suffer.

We know they are not quite safe in their own person.

And I particularly did not trust Sam at all.

But everybody seemed to trust him and not trust Fiona.

So we have that going on as well.

And and actually both go in to the house when everybody's not around.

And that adds the other threat of what are they going to do.

Yeah.

So there's a, there's a theme of hidden spaces as well.

There's another theme.

Yeah.

So space so.

The children break into run Maria and Gamache house sort of like the three bears and do just enough small damage spraying perfume turning pictures pictures to the wall just to let him know that he should be somewhere and where it is like being gaslit.

Yeah he doesn't know for what purpose until the plot continues that.

He never liked this young Sam.

He was very leery of him.

And that sort of sets up one aspect if this could go.

But then we have so much untangling to do at the end.

She just sells all this wraps it up and you're going who?

We are going to tell you what happens.

No, but it did remind me of the ending of state of Terror, the spy thriller that she co-wrote with Hillary Clinton that has that sort of barreling forward at the end with lots of things being resolved.

So she keeps us guessing to the very top page.

You know, the last two pages.

And why is that a format now?

Are publishers saying, stretch it out more pages and wrap it up in three pages or two and be done with it?

Well, it's possible.

It's the Netflix ification of fiction that could be like they have to be drawn out.

But I think Louise kind of is too good for that.

So let me restate that.

I would say she knows exactly what she's doing, which is to try to create a world of clutter and red herrings and dead ends, because this is what Gamache is facing as he's in this emotional turmoil, being really manipulated by psychopathic killers.

Yes.

And you really I even I haven't read very many of the books, but I can see he was really taken he was really struck down.

He was really worried.

And I kind of wanted to tell him, don't go in that room.

Don't do that.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, his weakness is his strength, which is he loves children, he loves his family.

And so the effective psychopath knows exactly how to get to him.

And we see him really struggle.

And this John Fleming has been studying him and his family for about 20 years.

Absolutely.

How am I going to get to him?

How am I going to trap him in my Web?

And so this is the ending, this unraveling.

And it's he actually behind the scenes, John Fleming is pulling all of his pawns in place on his chessboard, and he's going to make this move and then this move and this.

Down to the very minute clocks way a roll, as it does on the cover, but slowly, something that seems like sort of a benign aspect of the painting.

The clock set at a certain time.

I've been thinking that something's going to have something.

Terrible is going to.

Happen.

So you see these these details, they're they're fascinating.

They pull you in.

But if somebody would ask you the next day to repeat everything that you just read, you'd go, It was so much I don't know.

But the characters, when you read this, you have to look at the characters.

You have to stay on point.

You can't just throw it off and say, Oh, well, I won't worry about him anymore.

Because some of the most unlikely characters at the very end are the ones that we should take action on.

I will now.

Again, very much this the this theme of the the past on treasure.

Some of the details don't mean anything.

Some of them come to mean a lot.

And so I like that she uses that visual She loves using art and it's used quite creatively in this book.

It really is.

She's an excellent writer, and I thought maybe I better.

Boy, that smells absolutely delicious.

Out this sheet pan salmon with vegetables.

And these are always in in recipe books and magazines.

Oh, here we go.

So we have that done.

My salad is ready to toss and your soup is heating up.

You have a flame?

Yes, I just turned it off.

I'm going to blend it after I put in some herbs here, but I think maybe I'll blend it.

I first have a couple a minute or so to do it.

Yeah.

Great.

Yes.

Look at that.

Oh, I'm going to man the cooler.

These are wonderful, aren't they?

They really are.

As long as the container is deep enough.

Otherwise it can be very exciting and the kitchen can become very colorful.

I think this is a bleaker, darker tale.

I think that is absolutely accurate.

It would be a hard one maybe to start with.

On the other hand, it does stand alone.

It does stand alone and just kind of keep I'd even make a list of people and put some identifiers.

See, what I would do now is just put a slice of salmon on these carrots like this, turn that over and then surround them with the cooked vegetables.

And I think you'd have this at the bistro in town, don't you?

Oh, absolutely.

That's beautiful.

Maybe the little soup as a starter.

We'd start with your soup, Definitely.

Oh, yes.

La soup.

And then the first course.

And I just love the presentation.

Thank you for suggesting this.

Although I did not put any dressing in it.

We are going to come back and finish in a few minutes.

In the meantime, we want you to take a look at the list of 18 books that Louise Penny has written.

Incredible, incredible list.

And we'll be right back.

So April Lidinsky and I have finished the book.

We have finished our cooking, and now we want to show you what we did.

And we're going to have a little toast.

A very little one.

Yes.

To Louise.

To Louise.

Penny, Sue.

Better mystery writer, right?

Absolutely.

Great.

So let's see what you have made over here.

Talk about a. Canadian dish, maple syrup and cinnamon stovetop pudding.

Absolutely delicious.

And a pea soup made with fresh mint that could be served.

Chilled or warm?

Absolutely delicious.

And you did a little trial, Leif, with your cooking cream.

Of course, it's all mixed up now.

But a little.

Swirl.

A swirl, swirl.

And here is the roasted salmon with the roasted potatoes, onion, garlic and Brussels sprouts.

And we served it on a bed of chopped carrots.

And here's our French salad made with lemon juice and and some oil and a little bit of garlic, salt and pepper.

And here we go.

This book is great.

I loved it.

I agree with you on an la mark.

What a person.

And I want to thank you for joining us today.

And I want to thank you.

Thank you.

And we've got some Scotch whisky and the Irish pipes to close.

You'll see a picture of this licorice pipe.

So one of Armand Gamache, has a sweet tooth as well as a sweet one.

I do, too.

So thank you for joining us.

Remember, good food, good friends, good books, good licorice, good soup, everything make for a very good life indeed.

We'll see you next time.

Bye, bye.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.