It's by Canadian author Louise Penny (who co-wrote State of Terror, which is how I got to hear about her); it came out in 2005; it's the first in a now-lengthy series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete de Quebec; and my audio-version was expertly read by Adam Sims.

We're in the fictional village of Three Pines. The locality is modelled on Penny's place of residence, Knowlton, in the Eastern Townships (Cantons-de-l'Est), southeast of Montreal.

Retired former schoolteacher Jane Neal, whom the whole village loves, is found murdered. The weapon is a traditional arrow that has hit her right in the heart. A hunting accident is suspected initially. But her death comes immediately after the decision by the local art-show jury to exhibit one of her paintings for the very first time, and her subsequent invitation to her neighbours to join her for a celebration in her living room (a part of her house that she has to date never made public). Gamache arrives from Montreal with his team to investigate.


The other side of Canada: British Columbia, 2004

Cons first:

I found the humour a little too arch at times, and although it's nice to have a detective who's not struggling with some dreadful complex, Gamache did seem just a little too perfect. Can anyone be quite so wise, so forbearing, so insightful? You kind of wanted him to have more faults, but maybe they show up in later volumes. A little TOO faulty to be entirely believable, on the other hand, was Yvette Nichol, the young police officer assigned as a junior on the case...

And for my taste, that climactic scene in the old basement was a little too melodramatic...

But it was a very enjoyable listen, with lots of pros:

The characters, both the denizens of Three Pines and the police officers, are interesting (although you can't help but feel that the depiction of the gay couple leans towards the stereotypical). The description of the locality is evocative.

And there's a lot of psychology woven into the development of the story, backed up by some great poetry. (Dan Bilefsky says Penny's detective novels are "more intricately wrought tone poems than procedurals".) Whether this approach would start to feel a bit heavy a la longue, I can't say.

But you couldn't give better life advice than that doled out by Gamache to Nichol, when he shares with her his four most useful phrases: "I'm sorry; I don't know; I need help; I was wrong." And bookshop owner and former psychiatrist Myrna brings us a striking "quote" from Brother Albert Mailloux (fictional, I think): "His theory is that life is loss. Loss of parents, loss of loves, loss of jobs. So we have to find a higher meaning in our lives than these things and people. Otherwise we'll lose ourselves."

You initially think that the book's title is an art reference (plenty of characters are artists, after all, and the crucial clue to the identity of the murderer lies in a painting). But actually the title refers to a characteristic of the murderer: The refusal to change, the refusal to let go of old hurts. Myrna again: "Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead."

The title in French, though, is "En plein coeur" ("right in the heart", which I actually think is better... Not only does it point to the nature of the crime, but it also underlines the disturbing reality that something evil has happened right in the heart of this comfortable, peaceful village.



You also learn quite a lot about Quebec as you go along. There's the problem of the hunters who blast into rural areas, often causing accidents -- not unique to that locality, of course.

And then there's that language thing... The minority position of anglophones has economic consequences, and Bilefsky tells us that "linguistic tensions between the French majority and English minority are never far from the surface". It's interesting, then, that anglophone Penny makes her key character a French Canadian. She describes her books as "love letters to Quebec", but they had appeared in 25 languages before the process of translating them into Canadian French began in 2010...

All in all, this is intelligent mystery-writing.

Does it belong to the "cosy" category? Well, there's certainly plenty of cosiness... Warm kitchens, glowing fires, relaxed conviviality, and so much food and wine... But this reader rejects any straightforward categorization: "While it did take place in a quaint little artsy town, there was a darker feel to it then you see with a lot of cozies. There was long-standing hatred, fear, homophobia, revenge and, as it turns out, multiple murders. Though it certainly wasn’t gloomy, it doesn’t have that light, almost playful atmosphere you see in the cozy mystery genre."

Half-way-house cosy, then... I'd be up for another round, but I'd prefer to read the French version next time.

One closing observation: Still Life was rejected or ignored by 50 publishers before it finally appeared. Penny was by then 46. In the meantime, the Armand Gamache series has sold millions of copies across the world. Worth remembering...