Still Life (Inspector Gamache No. 1) - Louise Penny

I’m guessing that reading Louise Penny’s first Inspector Gamache novel, Still Life,only after having read half-a-dozen of the latest books in the series has given me a whole different perspective on the novel than someone meeting Gamache for the first time here would have. After all, I already know Gamache, his family, his fellow Canadian cops, and his Three Pines neighbors pretty well. For that reason, Still Life read more like a prequel for me than it did an introduction to a whole new series of detective novels.

Still Life introduces the little Canadian village of Three Pines both to readers and to Inspector Gamache who prior to being called there to investigate what could turn out to be a murder was unaware of the village’s existence despite living within a relatively short drive of the place. Jane Neal, one of the little community’s most respected and loved members, has been found dead in the surrounding forest. If there had actually been any snow on the ground, one could be forgiven for wondering if Jane had died while in the process of creating a snow angel. Gamache and his team determine quickly enough that the woman has been shot through the heart by an arrow. Now they need to determine whether she was murdered or killed in some kind of a tragic hunting accident. If murder, who could possibly have had a motive to kill the kindly woman? If a hunting accident, why has no one taken responsibility for what happened?

Louise Penny

Gamache moves the core of his investigative team to Three Pines for the duration, primarily Jean Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle LaCoste, but including an arrogant rookie investigator whose laziness and insecurities come close to undermining the whole investigation long before it closes in on the killer. There are lots of twists and turns leading to a succession of possible suspects (including some of the characters who will go on to become series regulars), and I thought I had the case solved twice before the real culprit was finally revealed – and I never did figure it out on my own.

For me, the unexpected fun of Still Life came from watching Inspector Gamache get acquainted with all the central characters from the succeeding books in the series. Despite having to consider just about everyone in the village a suspect at one time or another, Gamache slowly comes to the realization that he likes these people and feels comfortable around them. And they reciprocate the feeling. By the end of the novel, it begins to seem as if Gamache is at least a little bit sad to have to leave Three Pines and return to the big city atmosphere of Montreal.  At one point in the second half of the novel, Penny shares Gamache’s thoughts with us this way:

            “Looking around he realized how much he liked this place and these people. Too bad one of them was a murderer.” (page 208)

Then as the investigation began to make real progress, Gamache had time for further reflection on the village and its inhabitants:

            “Gamache again marveled at the people who chose to live in this area. Was Margaret Atwood a garbage collector perhaps? Or maybe Prime Minister Mulrooney had picked up a second career delivering the mail. No one was whom they seemed. Everyone was more.” (Page 285)

And finally, in the book’s last two sentences, Penny makes it very clear that Inspector Gamache has fallen in love with just about everything about Three Pines:

            “Life was far from harried here. But neither was it still.” (Page 318)

And the rest is history.

Bottom Line: Still Life is an excellent introduction to a crime fiction series that has grown into one of the best ones out there. The mystery solved is a solid one that will keep readers guessing while introducing them to the various characters they will become so familiar with in later Gamache books. I recommend both the book and the series.