Still Life

"Still Life" is a like a favourite armchair: a comfortable, familiar, structure that you relax into and become reluctant to leave.

This is a leisurely tale of murder, betrayal, art, archery and excellent croissants.

Set in a rural French Canadian village that seems to be populated by local hunters who were born there and talented but poor artists and poets who relish its bucolic charms, it involves the investigation, by a senior detective and a surprisingly large team of police officers, of the death of a local artist who has been shot through the heart by an arrow.

The tone of the book is set by the polite but unyielding authority of the most senior police officer, Inspector Gamache, a well read, softly spoken man who observes closely, show more thinks deeply and spends much of his time gathering information either by sitting in the local bistro/café or by sitting on a bench on the village green, watching who does what with whom.

Gamache solves the mystery by pulling at loose threads that others might miss until the deceptions hiding the killer unravel and all is revealed.

The writing is vivid without being garish. There is a strong sense of place and community. The story has the unhurried pace of a dinner party where each course is to be savoured and discussed between friends before things move on. I rather enjoyed the poetry attributed to one of the characters who turns out to be a famous Canadian poet.

The plot is a puzzle, with a satisfying number of twists and turns and a relatively small number of suspects. I worked out the killer just before their name was revealed. I take this to be a kindness on the author's part, allowing me to feel smug but not bored.

Despite being about murder, this is a gentle, reflective, cultured book that is as much about understanding the lives the villagers have constructed for themselves as it is about discovering whodunnit.

I felt that I'd taken a pleasant weekend break in a place different enough to be interesting but not so exotic as to disturb my comfort.

The first book in a series, "Still Life" left me disposed towards reading more but not passionate about getting the next book as soon as possible. show less

Our setting is Three Pines, a small village in southern Quebec, and our series detective is Chief Inspector Amand Gamache of the Quebec provincial police force. The mystery to be solved in this volume is the death of Jane Neal, a retired schoolteacher who seemed to be loved by everyone in town. She's been killed by bow and arrow in what might have been a hunting accident.

I hated this book. The characters are thin caricatures (does the town's gay couple need to run the restaurant, the B&B, AND the antique shop?); the murder is solved in a wildly implausible manner; and Gamache himself is an insufferably pompous ass. He prides himself on being a skilled instructor of younger officers, yet when faced with a new team member, his response to show more her inexperienced mistakes is to kick her off the team. To be sure, she has a lot to learn, but she is also making a significant number of the deductions and insights that lead to the murderer being caught.

Simply at the level of competent and attractive prose, Penny's writing is a disaster. There's a sentence or two in every chapter that is so graceless and ugly that I was stopped in my tracks, stunned that a professional editor had allowed it to stand.

And there's a terribly offensive resolution to one subplot, in which the gay couple is the victim of vandalism by a group of boys. One of those boys turns out to be gay himself, and the two men arrange for him to be sentenced to community service working at their restaurant. They describe their motivation as wanting to expose the boy to positive role models of gay men to help him get past his internalized homophobia, but Penny makes it look a lot more like a setup for grooming of a vulnerable kid by predatory men. That's a dangerous stereotype which all by itself is sufficient reason to never pick up another book by this author. show less

I had seen this series mentioned a number of times, but a lot of reviews advised it was a "cozy mystery" which I'm not always a fan of.
I would dispute that this was a cozy mystery. This is more of a police procedural with a physiological bent about why people do and react as they do.
I loved the fact that for a change the main detective was a happily married, balanced individual and that it focused more on the mystery.
Whilst some of the characters in Three Pines could have been a little more shaded, for a debut novel I thought this was good.
I'm definitely going to continue with the series

I really enjoyed this book. This is the first in the Inspector Gamache series. Every detective has their own peculiarities - things that make the character and investigations unique in some way. Gamache distinguishes himself from the field of detectives in his ability to get the characters around him play a critical role in solving the murder. He is very measured in his manner, seemingly quiet, but can, when needed, project great strength. Extremely observant; almost akin to Sherlock Holmes, yet very human.

In this case, there has been a murder of an elderly lady in a small Quebecois town. She has died in a very unusual way, but with materials that are available in the town. Seemingly, this lady had no enemies.

Gamache moves in with his show more team to the town, endears himself to them and, as he relies on them and respects them, they begin to do the same. They come to him with important information, sometimes trusting him and no one else. This, along with the evidence he and his team collects, allows him to put the pieces together and solve the crime.

This approach to a mystery story allows the reader to be introduced to a rich set of characters, colorful characters with read depth. Even Gamache's team has their idiosyncrasies and drama. This all contributes to a well-written detective story, with twists and turns, and depth of character. I highly recommend this book and plan to read more in the series. show less

One of the pleasures of retirement is having the time to discover that I enjoy a good detective story. The first element of one is to create an interesting sleuth. With Still Life, Louise Penny introduced Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. He is educated (Christ Church, Cambridge) and well-dressed. He has a happy marriage. He has risen as high as he ever will, but he is fine with that. He’s not as flawed as some literary detectives, though there are stray references to a recent case that he is believed to have mishandled, but this is never explored. His method is to insert himself into the victim’s community to observe and listen. In his experience, if he waits in this way, the culprit will reveal him- or show more herself. I liked that.

On the final page, case solved, Gamache pauses on his way out of Three Pines, the quiet village that was the scene of the crime, to think again about “the good, kind, flawed people struggling with their lives.” In these characters, Penny has added another element of a good story, well-realized figures one can imagine spending time with.

That is, with the exception of some of the obligatory red herring suspects, who are beyond flawed. Still, a good detective yarn needs to have an array of possible perps that the reader can keep in mind while waiting for the final reveal. Which, in this case, doesn’t happen when Gamache gathers everyone in a living room, although that scene sets the denouement in motion. Nice touch, that, in variation of a set trope of the genre.

Along with the few one-dimensional bad apples, I also have reservations about Agent Yvette Nichol, recently transferred from traffic to the Sûreté and eager to live up to her father’s burdensome aspirations for her. This is her first case; in her eyes, a chance to shine. Gamache tries to introduce her to his method, but she is obtuse. The symbolism of looking in a mirror with a written motto tucked into the frame, “You’re looking at the problem,” which is recalled when she looks through the window of the situation room after she’s been cast out into the cold, is heavy-handed. It also contains her reflection, of course. I’ll suspend judgment and wait until I read more in the series. Is she a one-off? Will she reappear? Does she become Gamache’s nemesis? Or does his patient mentorship eventually pay off?

Another important element for a good story is a sense of place. Not too much detail, just enough to evoke. I think this is another way Penny succeeds here, although my judgment may be clouded by the fact that I lived in Québec’s Eastern Townships for a few years. The memory of that, plus Penny’s judicious brush strokes, vividly portrayed the scene for me. Penny also chose the season and weather well to support her plot.

I’m glad there are eight more Gamache tales waiting for me.

What's that you say? There are nineteen more? Well, I'll get to what I can. show less

For my last day off of the holiday season, I did next to nothing except sit in a chair with a dog on my lap, reading this excellent series debut mystery novel. For those of you who haven't already discovered Three Pines, Quebec, and the talents of Chief Inspector Gamache, may I recommend that you give this book a try. It's a traditional whodunit, dun very well indeed. A retired schoolteacher, the beloved Jane Neal, is found dead of a wound from a hunting arrow in the woods near the village. Could it have been an accident? Why was she out walking without her dog? The entire community comes under scrutiny, and naturally, many secrets are revealed, including why Miss Neal, in all these years, had never invited a single person into any room show more of her home except the kitchen. Just enough red herrings, and no ultimately dishonest false clues of the sort that make a reader cranky. Surprising bits of humor, and delightfully witty banter among some of the friends in the "cast".
Review written January 2011 show less

I listened to the book on audio and loved it! I was already invested in the characters and the wonderful community of Three Pines as I had read many of the other books in the series. These books are more about the very human characters, with their quirks and flaws, rather than the actual solving of crimes, which have a lot of underlying psychological aspects to them. I also appreciated the humor of the characters, with many subtle, clever one-liners.