Still Life by
Louise Penny
hbk out October 05
Published by Headline
at £18.99
This is one of those books that you can tell from the first page is going to be good.
A first novel and the runner-up in the 2004 CWA Debut Dagger, this is a 'Canadian
cosy' based in a small village in southern Quebec, not far from the US border. In spite
of this location thousands of miles from Miss Marples, the village of Three Pines is
still a couple of hundred years old and could easily be in Oxfordshire, along with the
varied collection of inhabitants.
The central figure is Chief-Inspector Armand Gamache of the Quebec Surete, who
seems to investigate at a very personal level, staying in the village B&B with his
Inspector and a rookie woman 'Agent'. The avuncular Gamache is a philosopher and
teacher, though his efforts at tuition are not appreciated by his pupil detective, Yvette
Nicol.
A dear old lady from one of the cottages around the village green is found dead in the
woods, shot by a hunting arrow. At first thought to be an accident, the fact that the
arrow has gone right through her and is missing raises the alarm. Gamache is a Poirot-
like figure, which fits well with the whole French ambience of the book – apart from
the story, what is interesting is the allegation put into the mouths of characters that the
French-English divide is quite serious, the anglophones feeling second-class citizens
in the face of the aggressive Frenchness of the majority population, this having driven
quite a number of the English out into other provinces.
The cast of characters is large and it would be pointless to even begin trying to
summarise the story, which is a classical 'whodunnit' with plenty of choices. For
those who appreciate village 'cosies', this one loses nothing by its geographical
uniqueness.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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Still Life by
Louise Penny
