Still Life by Louise Penny, is the opening novel of what would become her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. Gamache at the beginning of the series is an investigator in the Sûreté du Québec in Montreal – the provincial police département. He is sent from Montreal to the small rural town of Three Pines to investigate what is thought to be a hunting accident. The novel’s opening paragraph is a perfect example of Penny’s writing:
Miss Jane Neal met her maker in the early morning mist of Thanksgiving Sunday. It was pretty much a surprise all round. Miss Neal’s was not a natural death, unless you’re of the belief everything happens as it’s supposed to. If so, for her seventy-six years Jane Neal had been walking toward this final moment when death met her in the brilliant maple woods on the verge of the village of Three Pines. She’d fallen spread-eagled, as though making angels in the bright and brittle leaves.
When Gamache arrives to investigate, as often happens in detective novels, the evidence just did not add up. Yet, it is all he had to go on, except for one odd thing. Neal had just entered a painting in the local juried art show. Although an avid artist she had never before allowed anyone to see her paintings, or even so much as invited them into her home beyond the kitchen. And no, I’m not going to tell you a spoiler here.
As Gamache and his wife were frequent visitors to the town during this investigation, they meet all of the eclectic people in the village who will become regular characters in Penny’s future novels in the series. Armand and his wife are so taken by Three Pines they will purchase a home there when the investigation is complete.
Recommendation: Yes, and I suspect futures novels from the series will be on my reading list.
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