Still Life

On a quiet autumn evening in the small, picturesque town of Three Pines, a body is found in the forest. At first, it seems like a tragic hunting accident, but upon further investigation, it's clear that this was no accident. Someone has deliberately murdered a local woman. As Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team try to piece together who would want to kill such a well-loved member of the community, they unearth long-buried secrets and dark histories. And the more they learn, the more it becomes clear that this wasn't just a murder. It was a message.

Louise Penny's Still Life is a gorgeously written, atmospheric mystery that will keep readers guessing until the very end. Penny has created a rich and complex world, populated by fully-realized characters that readers will be eager to return to again and again. This is a truly outstanding mystery novel, and one that should not be missed.

my family calls these the “inspector fromage” books. I am not generally a mystery reader but my mom loves these so I'm gonna try them :)

I started reading this and then realized I had already read it several years ago. Even though I had read it, I didn't remember who had “done” it but the story was intriguing enough that I kept going just to find out. Very well written, great character building, and good sense of humor.

Took me nearly a month to get through this tiny book but being sick and in bed finally allowed me to do it. A very disappointing read.

It took a while for me to get into this because I've never read a “cosy” mystery set in a Canadian small village before, but it definitely grew on me before the halfway mark. I somewhat guessed the culprit and their motivation early on but wasn't confident of my guess until it was finally revealed - and it was pretty satisfying to get it right!

Gamache and Beauvoir were a pretty nice police duo. Gamache in particular managed to stand out from the bevy of cozy mystery police inspectors/detectives in a million mystery series out there primarily because he's “softer” than a lot of the others. Detectives in these kinda mysteries tend to be strait-laced and logical to a fault, sometimes to the point of sociopathy (see: Sherlock Holmes), but Gamache... isn't. He homes in on the human aspect of the crime, he immerses himself into the village life while still making it clear that the purpose of his presence is to investigate the crime. He's interested in humanity, psychology, and sociology, and actually talks positively about feelings, emotions, and intuitions, something that a lot of cozy mystery detectives would never touch with a ten foot pole.

I didn't enjoy the first few chapters tbh, where we open with Gamache being called to the crime scene, but then we suddenly go back in time to relive some events that happened before the crime was committed, but this was never explicitly denoted in the text. This does seem to be Penny's writing style of choice. Sometimes we're happily experiencing events in the POV of one character, who would then maybe look over at another character and suddenly we're reading the POV of this second character without it being explicitly stated that the POV switched. It threw me off a lot at the beginning but I got used to it, and thankfully this doesn't happen so often as to become annoying.

The village characters were all blending into one for me at first, and I found my engagement with the book dropping whenever it was all of them gathering at one spot. It got better eventually as the book went on and we found out more about each character to give them more of a distinct personality and identity. By the end of it, I came to appreciate some of the side characters who I was either completely indifferent to at first or even repulsed by.

A particular side character whom I just got increasingly frustrated and bewildered by as the book went on was Agent Yvette Nichol. Given that we actually spend a small bit of time in the book knowing about her backstory and family before she is thrown into the action with Gamache, I thought she might turn out to be a fairly important character in the process of solving the mystery. I thought I would be seeing a classic mentor-mentee relationship unfold between Gamache and her through the story. I was incredibly bewildered that neither of this turned out to be the case. In fact, her last few appearances in the book were so frustrating I kinda hope that she was just a one-off mistake and wouldn't come back in any of the other books. Spoilery thoughts on her and also on the ending: I thought she might actually grow from being an insufferable twit to becoming a bit more humbled and bit more wise by the end - but no, she was still an insufferable twit at the end. I thought she'd finally realise she was the problem when she saw her reflection in the window, but no, she put that blame on Gamache. That moment was the exact moment I gave up on her character. I also thought, OK, maybe she would turn out to be the insufferable twit who happened to have a stunning intellect that far outstripped everyone else's, even Gamache, because she seemed to have an idea of who the culprit was right from the start but was keeping it to herself. So when she finally said it was Peter Morrow, I believed her. But no, it turned out to be Ben, who was one of my first few suspects... So she's still an insufferable twit who is also WRONG. So what is the whole point of her in this story!?

Overall, I was happy with the experience of reading this book and it did give me some pretty nice quotes to think about, especially when Gamache speaks to Myrna about the idea that life is a series of losses, and how people adapted to that determined how happy and adjusted they can be with life. I will be continuing the series.

Absolutely loved it!

Such a cozy vibe. I particularly enjoyed the focus on the community (yes a staple of murder mysteries, but it felt more personal in this novel) and the intimacy of the main friend group. Overall a perfect vacation read (or curled up on the couch in early autumn).

Move over, Hercule, there's a new man in my life and his name is Armand Gamache.

Enjoyable read, I have had this on my list for awhile so I was excited that it was a comfortable and enjoyable read that pleasantly meandered and drew me in, and had a nice ending that was a surprise but yet not too implausible. Looking forward to Louise Penny's 2nd in this series.

This was a quick read, and I enjoyed the setting and the general small town vibe. There was an awful lot of telling about everything rather than showing, though. Some characters were very one-dimensional and cookie-cutter, which definitely brought the overall quality of the read down quite a bit for me. I see from reviews that Penny's books get better, but I'm in no rush to see if I agree with that.

This series was recommended to me by several people because I am a mystery lover. I have mostly read from the “golden age” of detective fiction (Christie, Sayers, etc.) but I was excited to have something new to try. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with this one.

I will reiterate what several other people have mentioned here: the characterization was odd. The characters made decisions, said things, and felt things that didn't make sense to me. Some of the characters you wonder why she put them in the story at all. Most of them weren't suspects, as almost no one has any motive.

My next disappointment was with the mystery itself. There isn't much chance of you solving any of it alongside the detective because they don't hunt for clues, search for motives, or interrogate suspects. It's all about “feeling out” people (strangely characterized people) through irrelevant conversation.

Ultimately it wasn't satisfying. It's long for a mystery, with especially long chapters, and you don't feel like you're getting anywhere in the investigation until the end, when you realize everything you guessed from the beginning was correct.

Also, the title doesn't make sense.

A little slow but thoughtful. I found several things that were references to other outside things.

2015: Interesting start to a series. If you're into thrillers or something very dark and fast-paced, this probably won't be your speed. I like that the book takes place in a sleepy township in Quebec, and beyond the murder mystery itself it has some great thematic elements.

Be forewarned - you will probably be hungry at some point while reading. Louise Penny does a great job of describing the food. (4 stars.)

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2018: Rereading this book, a lot of the side characters felt wooden and I disliked how Penny introduced discussions without giving context (e.g. characters had reactions to things that were not yet shown to the reader). Giving this book 2 stars as a debut and averaging it out to 3 stars for the rating. However, I'm going to keep going with the series because my friends rave about subsequent books.

I really liked this mystery. While it moved along at a good pace, it wasn't a heart racing thrill ride to the end, and I think that is why I truly enjoyed this. It's the type of mystery to enjoy on the couch with a cup of tea on a blustery, snowy day. The type to sink into and just feel immersed in it's world, and from what I have heard the whole series is much like this.

You can read more of my review at: http://bit.ly/2EoqML3

I read this on the recommendation of my supervisor at the library I work at, and was surprisingly entertained. I don't normally read novels in this genre, but something about the writing style, plot, and characters appealed to me. The backstories (of which there were many) were fleshed out, and left me feeling like I knew everybody from Three Pines like family. I look forward to reading the other books in this particular series.

A friend described this series as “the grittiest of coz[y mysteries]” my mother said it was like a soap opera with characters she just didn't like. It was fine writing with a few blocky characters but read well enough (mysteries just aren't my jam tho) #bookclub4m

Promising start! Looking forward to spending more time in Three Pines.

I really enjoyed this - it's very much a cozy mystery, set in a charming Quebec village with lots of fun and interesting characters. But there's a certain level of emotional heft as well. There were enough clues along the way to let me puzzle out who I thought the culprit was, and enough misdirection so it wasn't obvious.

I'm looking forward to reading more Three Pines mysteries soon!

Perhaps I missed something, but I can only give Louise Penny's “Still Life” 2.5 stars. The dialog and characterization were confusing and rather messy, but not in a true-to-life way. Perhaps a better editor could have smoothed out the odd, jarring edges, but a good writer shouldn't need that much editing. And the story was okay. I've heard from a librarian that recommended this book that the sequels are even better, so I'll give the next book in the series a go.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. I'll admit that I got the book because I loved the cover of The Beautiful Mystery and found out it was part of series so I picked up the first few. Then I found the Cruisin' the Cozies challenge and I thought these would be perfect, might as well try one.

It is definitely a book that you want to curl up next to a cozy fire and cuddle up with. It's charming, suspenseful and mysterious. Usually when you read a mystery or thriller the victim is kind of unknown. After all, their death is the catalyst for the book. Without that there is no story so generally that person gets killed right away, before you get a chance to know them or care. You care about the ones left behind (if it's a good writer), but you're not really invested in the victim.

Jane Neal is killed in the first sentence of the book, although we go back in time a little to the days before her death. Still we don't get to spend a lot of time with Ms. Neal before she meets her demise. And yet, by the time the killer in Three Pines is revealed I felt like I knew Jane Neal better than any other character in the book and I mourned her as such.

Penny writes characters that glow with life on the pages. And yet they still remain mysterious enough to keep you wondering who isn't true. And she also writes the people you love to hate. For me, besides the obvious Yolande Fontaine was Agent Yvette Nichol. I loathed her. It was such an interesting addition to the cast of characters.

The mystery itself was gripping. I didn't know who the killer could be. Just when I thought it was someone, something would change my mind or prove them innocent. And there were all these little side stories. The portraits of a small, close knit community. I was hooked.

Once again, judging a book by its cover works for me!

Still Life is the first in the series of Inspector Gamache novels, but the second one that I had read. I started with book #4 - A Rule Against Murder. If I'd begun reading from the beginning I probably would have rated Still Life 3.5 or 4 stars. Fortunately the series gets better with age and by comparison to the later work I had to rate it a 3.

The good news is, it encouraged me to pick up the second book, A Fatal Grace, to see if they continue to improve.