Still Life

Chief Inspector Gamache, Book 1

By: Louise Penny

Narrated by: Ralph Cosham

Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter. Still Life introduces not only an engaging series hero in Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces - and this series - with integrity and quiet courage, but also a winning and talented new writer of traditional mysteries in the person of Louise Penny.

©2005 Louise Penny (P)2006 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

An Easy Listen....

I like listening to Ralph Cosham. Generally, he uses a calm tone and use increased tension and excitement in his voices when needed. For me, his voice makes the novel easy to listen to for 9.5 hours of narration. It is character development and personality quirks that help him to distinguish his voice for each character.

I did not read Book 1 first.. I read three of the novels before reading this story (book 1) and I have three or four more books in the series to go. So far, all the stories have held my interest throughout, however, I would strongly suggest reading this series in order if possible which will help the listener appreciate and fully understand the back stories that are referred to in each story.

What I've found is that Ms. Penny builds each novel upon the previous story in some way. Yes, I have had to "suspend my disbelief" a little too much but I think the stories give me what I am after and that is a good whodunit while transporting me to another place even if its a fantasy/made up place. Three Pines is described so well that I feel that I could find it. Character development is very good, you get to know the reoccurring characters very well.

In addition to the whodunit aspect which has good twists and turns, there are mystical and otherworldly undertones in this little village where everybody knows everybody and it's become a second home for investigator Armand Gamache.

A Remarkable Detective In A Remarkable Setting

I admit to trying this book and this series after going some time without any new additions from my favorite authors. It has proven to be a wise and wonderful decision. As of this writing I am on my 3rd Gamache novel. Let me tell you why I have fallen in love with the series.

Inspector Gamache is a smart and extremely humane hero. He doesn't have flaws or demons like Robicheaux or Hole, but he does share their extreme sensitivity in crime solving. And unlike those two great detectives, he doesn't resort to violence, or at least he hasn't been forced to yet. What sets him apart is the absolute devotion he receives from his peers and everyone he meets. His squad loves him, the community loves him and even his enemies respect and fear him.

The second feature I love is the setting. the village of Three Pines is quite literally a real life version of Narnia. It's filled with young and old living in cottages nestled in hillsides with one church, a general store and tavern. It is described on several occasions as a village no one finds until they are lost. It is never a destination, but once you've found it you'll never forget it. There's even a rundown mansion of sorts. The villagers are more like a family, in that they get along because they have too. They are rude, cantankerous, funny, diverse, talented and charismatic. There are poets, artists, drunks, gurus, Christians and atheists. In much the same way I felt when I read the Chronicles of Narnia, I find myself engrossed in the community of Three Pines.

Finally Still Life revolves around a baffling murder that takes great police work to solve. The clues are entirely unique and wonderful to discover. The story is top notch.

I liked the narrator a lot. He captures the ambience of Thrre Pines as well as anyone could.

Great new series

Any additional comments?

So nice to have books with recurring characters seeing the newest one advertised on audible made me get the first one and i have the others ready to read

Incredible book!

Where does Still Life rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The best book I've read, and the best audiobook I've listened to!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Inspector Gamache is just a lovely person, and then I adore Clara as well.

What does Ralph Cosham bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Ralph brings the whole story to life - I am now reading the second book in the Inspector Gamache series, but without the audio book to complement it there is a distinct difference in the feel of the 2nd book. I really do prefer reading the e-book, whilst at the same time listening to the audio book.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, definitely!

Any additional comments?

Incredibly gifted author - I am planning on reading every single one of her books!

Little slow, but a worthy listen

The beginning is slow, the narrator is difficult to enjoy and made me quit listening several times.
However I am pleased to write that I enjoyed the story, after adjusted my listening style and perspective.

loved it !

totally enjoyable in every way. the characters are fully developed and delightful. the narrator is Perfect! will listen to all of the inspector Gamache series.

An Excellent Mystery with an Unfortunate Climax

Who’d kill anyone in Three Pines? It’s an idyllic village in Quebec, a quiet place that doesn't appear on tourist maps (it can almost only be found "unexpectedly" like Narnia), a place where nobody locks their doors (except to prevent neighbors from leaving excess zucchini), where there may be a little marijuana but no violent crime or police force, where an annual touch football game is played on the village green, where poets and artists and ex-psychologists engage in witty and affectionate conversation, and where a plucky gay couple run a popular bistro slash antique shop slash B&B while bantering like Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward.

And especially who'd kill 76-year-old Jane Neal, a retired teacher who seems to have been universally liked (and loved) in Three Pines? It must've been a hunting accident! But most hunting accidents involve guns, while Jane was shot through the chest with an arrow, which is missing. And once Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Quebec Surete shows up with his homicide investigation team (including Jean Guy Beauvoir, his second in command of ten plus years, and Yvette Nichol, a rookie desperate to fulfill the dreams of her family and to impress Gamache), they start asking questions and poking around, and suspects surface. . .

In Still Life (2005), her first Inspector Gamache novel, Louise Penny doesn't cheat or trick her readers. She hints at the identity of the killer unobtrusively but fairly. (I kinda started suspecting the person based on little signs about a quarter of the way into the novel, but kind of forgot about it or changed my mind here and there as the plot progressed.) She effectively sometimes uses Three Pines locals to provide us a bit of intel before the police get it, so we feel suspense as to whether Gamache will get it in time.

As in the best mysteries, Penny's characters talk and think and act like real, interesting, and sympathetic people. Penny understands a wide range of human personalities and behaviors. She tells her story from the third person points of view of multiple characters: police like Gamache, Beauvoir, Nichol and locals like artist Clara Morrow, Jane's former student Matthew Croft, and bookshop owner Myrna Landers (the only black woman in town). It irritates me no end when mystery authors narrate stories from the points of view of culprits who never think about their crimes, unfairly throwing us off their scents… Penny I think avoids this slimy ploy.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is an appealing detective character to follow. A big man in his mid-fifties, bilingual in perfect French and English, well read (given to quoting from the Bible, Virginia Woolf, and Abbie Hoffman), observant, and full of empathy and sympathy. Unlike many fictional detectives, he is happily married and untroubled by inner demons or hidden skeletons. He wants the members of his homicide team to collaborate rather than compete, which, along with the fact that he's shocked by death (from a mouse caught in a trap to human shot in the woods), has led to the stalling of his career. His advancement has been hindered by his "fatal flaw" of helping people who don't deserve it and by his habit of stubbornly sticking to his instincts and principles to the point of insubordination. Refreshingly, he's fallible, as with the Arnot case, alluded to without explanation (one of Penny's techniques for making her characters feel like real people with their own present-affecting pasts).

Nichol is another interesting character, because she runs so against the genre stream of earnest female rookie homicide investigators who appreciate the greatness of their male police officer mentor and eventually (despite early hiccups) build a mutually trusting, affectionate, and effective relationship. Instead, Nichol seems stubbornly unable to learn the investigative practices and life wisdom Gamache is teaching. She is manipulative, prickly, resentful, and smug. The kind of person who, after looking in a mirror at a sticker saying, "You're looking at the problem," searches the room behind her for answers. She disobeys orders, lies, screws up, blames other people, and acts abrasively superior when she (thinks she) does something right. How long Gamache will put up with her?

There is plenty of interesting Quebecois culture in the novel: Thanksgiving in October, "tabernak" (tabernacle) as a strong swear word, cultural contrast if not conflict between Francophones and Anglophones, the dangers of hunting season for more than the prey. It is refreshing to read a mystery set in Canada instead of America.

Lots of neat motifs woven in: still life (= arrested development, blaming others for your problems, waiting for others to solve your problem, etc.), long house (we enter it when we're born, leave it when we die), memory, etc.

There is also plenty of neat literary stuff: like Gamache's quotations and references by other characters to Diogenes, Auden, etc.

Lots of neat lines:
"In the country death comes uninvited."
"He was always delighted when a digital clock had all the same numbers."
"Either that wallpaper goes or I go." (Oscar Wilde's last sentence, opportunely quoted in the novel)

The audiobook reader, Ralph Cosham, is always understated and fine; nothing fancy or dramatic, just spot on, intelligent, understanding reading with perfect timing, pausing, pacing, emphasizing, etc.

I'd been considering a five-star rating, but… The climax action is over the top given the rest of the novel and, to me, almost absurd and almost certainly unnecessary. "Please Penny," I pled after finishing the book, "you could get to the same moving resolution you end with without trying too hard to write an exciting climax with a bunch of people running around on a stormy night like keystone cops."

Nevertheless, Still Life is as well done as a murder mystery can be, and quite funny and moving. If you like quietly and powerfully literate mysteries involving real fictional people, you'd probably like it.

Guessed the killer in right away

Any additional comments?

Characters were one dimensional (almost caricatures) and the plot was overly simple with weak attempts at developing suspects other than the killer. The narrators’ almost monotone delivery didn’t help add dimension. It was a fine simple story but nothing more.

Snore

Beautifully written and read, but boring. I wanted to love because of the glowing reviews, but forced myself to finish.

The ending could have been so much better

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, the story the description of the area, the characters, the art, but the ending could have been much better