Still Life

Here’s my tale of woe: I read Still Life years ago, when it first came out. I guess I liked it well enough to read a couple more of her books. My sisters are big fans of Louise Penny and, hey, she’s a best selling author. I should be able to jump on the bandwagon, right? So, after a decade or so, I decided to give it another try with my amazing emerging open-mindedness. I thought, “I’ll just read all of her books and feel like a completed person.” I really wanted to like these mysteries. Alas, I got so annoyed with the writing style, most of the characters, and the plot, that I had to give up. I find it necessary to like or at least empathize with one of the main characters when I read a book. Nope. From Gamache and his cronies to Clara, to Peter, to Ruth, to Myrna, right on down to the bistro boys , I couldn’t dredge up any emotional connection at all.

In my very humble opinion Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway series are far superior. I hate when people mention other authors in a review. But there it is.

If you love a mystery series then dig into Louise Penny’s Detective Gamache books. Best to start with number one and they do progress in the story lines. These are not Le Carre caliber at all. Think “Agatha Raisin”. They are light as a feather and are centered in a delightful town outside Montreal. All of the atmosphere is French Canadian. The descriptions of the food, the town and the characters make me want to move to the fictional Three Pines right now. A murder is the glue that holds each book together. If you want to get your mind off the big, bad world, these do the trick. That’s what I used them for. Louise Penny books are a guilty pleasure that serve a good purpose.

This award-winning author came highly recommended by some of my fellow mystery lovers, but it was just meh. I enjoyed the quaint French Quebecian village setting, and Inspector Gamache was likable with a few unique quirks. However, the cast of characters was far too large to keep straight–from the hefty troop of investigators to the endless parade of inhabitants of Three Pines (it should not literally ‘take a Canadian village’)–making the plot line a bit hard to follow. By the time I got to the sagging middle, it was too late to turn back. Alas, I soldiered on. The school marmish victim, who was killed off early on, was well developed & smartly revealed through the eyes of the other characters. In the end when the killer was revealed, I had only a foggy inkling of who this person was. The motive, unfortunately, was unoriginal, and at the same time, quite unbelievably far fetched.

I’m a sucker for a good crime / police / detective / mystery series, so the fact that I was unaware of this series until now is INSANE. After finishing the Tana French Dublin Murder Mystery series, I was on the hunt for a new series, and this did not disappoint. Upon meeting Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sret du Qubec, I was quickly drawn in. Add to that the introduction of Three Pines, a small village which I have to believe will play a part in this entire series, and I found myself feeling oddly connected to these characters and this place. I could picture the village and had no trouble visualizing what each character looked like, and quickly pictured these people as my friends. Louise Penny, thank you for introducing me to these phenomenal characters and giving me a series that I can’t seem to put down!

When the body of an elderly woman is discovered in the woods outside the idyllic hamlet of Three Pines, the first assumption is that this is the result of a tragic hunting accident. Unfortunately, in the world of mystery novels, nothing is ever as cut and dried as it seems.

Still Life is the first novel by Louise Penny. The book was published in 2007, and the twelfth book in the series will be published in August of this year. This should give you some indication of both the series success, and the work ethic of the author.

The book introduces the title character, Armand Gamache, a chief inspector of the Sret du Qubec, as he seeks to solve a murder in a small village near Montreal. The village itself, and its eclectic denizens, becomes a character in the book, quirky and unique, always providing some background movement to draw the eye. The setting in a small village in the Canadian province of Quebec also adds interest, as Penny delves (a little bit) into the tensions, and friendships, between francophone and anglophone Qubcois.

The supporting characters are also incredibly well done. From the strange and eccentric citizens of Three Pines, to the police officers tasked with solving the murder, each character is uniquely realized and speaks with a distinct voice. However, Penny tends to rely heavily on exposition to advance her characters in the story, rather than dialogue. Characters thought lines tend to spell out exactly how they are reacting to situations that arise in the book, rather than letting the subtext of their actions or dialogue advance the plot. The style is clunky and a bit disappointing, but hopefully can be chalked up to inexperience on the authors part. (I certainly hope so, I started the second book in the series, A Fatal Grace, yesterday. Ill keep you all posted)

The mystery itself is satisfying, red herrings and false flags abound. And while the clues to solving the mystery are there to be found, they dont slap the reader in the face and scream look at me! This (I find) is a hard line for mystery writers to walk. Make the resolution too obscure, or the clues happen off screen, and the end is unsatisfying and feels tacked on. Telegraph the important stuff too loudly, and the mystery is solved by the read way too early, and takes a lot of the fun out of the read. Louise Penny does a great job sprinkling bits and pieces around, but blends them expertly into the background. Its only when you go back and think about it that you put the pieces together.

In all, this is a satisfying cozy-type mystery, great for an afternoons read (and it is currently beach-reading season). The book is generally well written (barring the clunky exposition I mentioned earlier), and the characters engaging enough to encourage you to jump directly into the sequel. I also have to say that Penny captures the northeastern landscape in fall closely enough to cause some homesickness in this transplanted New Englander.

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