Still Life by Louise Penny (2005)

An elderly and beloved member of the community is found dead in a rural village south of Montreal; Inspector Gamache is called to investigate.

Book Review: Still Life is the first of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache mysteries, and a worthy start at that. The book focuses on the characters, setting up a wide array of interesting and diverse inhabitants of the village (and the investigative team) for the reader to get to know and like, or maybe not like quite so much. This is one of those books in which the reader finds a favorite character and enjoys checking in on that person every so often (my favorite was Ruth) while reading. For those who prefer plot to character, Still Life may not be the book for you. And if you like your detectives hard-boiled, the zen-like Inspector Armand Gamache may be just a little too mellow. This was intended as a vacation read for me, and it worked well, keeping me reading, and even though the reader may solve the mystery long before the police, it was still engaging in a low-key way. This is a cozy Canadian mystery, and what I enjoyed most was the insight into Canadian life, and the interesting and unique relationship between French and English Canadians, of which I was mostly unaware. I also learned some about archery. For the most part this is a quiet book (hence the name?), not a lot of heart-racing moments, with just enough suspense to keep the pages turning. As this is the first book of a series, it'll be interesting to see how the series and characters develop, and how much of Still Life was table setting for what's to come. Even more interesting for me, was that there were many Canadians (altho mostly from Western Canada) where I was staying -- just an added treat. [3★]