Still Life

Still Life by Louise Penny (2005) 312 pages

This is where it all starts, where Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series takes fire. In the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines, a beloved retired school teacher, Miss Jane Neal, is found dead in the woods, shot by an arrow. Was it an accidental shooting in bow season or was it murder? Gamache and his agents come to investigate. A villager, Matthew Croft, is quite helpful about types of bows and arrows and arrow tips during a town meeting that Gamache holds early on, and thus Gamache can't believe it when evidence makes it appear that Croft might be responsible for Jane's death. Meanwhile, we learn that Jane, who had been so secretive about her paintings that she wouldn't let her friends near them, had just submitted a painting to an art show a few days before her death. Jane also never let her friends into her home, except for her kitchen, but then said she was planning to entertain them in her living room after the art show opened. Why the change? What is the mystery about her artwork?

As usual, Penny's work is so layered, feels so true-to-life, that I want to move to Three Pines and spend time in the Bistro and the bookstore with these characters.