Review - Still Life

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Still Life
#1 in Series
by Louise Penny
337 pages
Release date 1/1/2005
5 out of 5 stars


According to the publisher, “The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets... “

Still Life  is the first of 16 (!!!) books in the Inspector Gamache mystery series by Louise Penny.  I stumbled upon it after seeing one of my favorite bookstagrammers, Ashley (you can check out my interview with her here), post about how much she enjoys this series, and I decided to give it a shot!

This is a “cozy mystery,” much like Her Royal Spyness mysteries; while the focus of the book is on a murder, there is very minimal violence, and pretty much no sex or foul language.  For people who want to get into mysteries or thrillers but are scared they won’t be able to sleep after ready them, I highly recommend this type of book!

In fact, Still Life strongly reminded me of something you’d find on the Hallmark Channel.  The setting, Three Pines, is a small, close-knit village, full of people who run book stores and cafes for a living.  The murder of Jane Neal shakes the town; until that point, the town had been virtually crime free!  Our investigator, Inspector Armand Gamache, comes to town and he can’t believe how picturesque it is compared to the big city of Quebec.  Despite coming to town to solve a murder, Inspector Gamache actually ends up falling in love with the quaint village!

Despite the fact that the village is filled with the cliches you’d expect  to find in a Hallmark movie, I didn’t feel that the solution to the murder was predictable at all.  The climax of the book had me on the edge of my seat!  

Another interesting aspect of this book is that it takes place in the Quebec Province, in Canada.  For me personally, this is a new setting, as I have not encountered much media that takes place in the French-speaking part of Canada.  As a French speaker myself, I found the way  the author included what a big part the language is in Quebecois culture to be fascinating.  

I highly recommend Still Life.  It is an extremely pleasant, enjoyable book to read.  The mystery itself was fantastic, and if you enjoy it, there are 15 more books in the series to keep you busy!

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