Still Life

'Three Pines is made up of good people, but one of us is festering.' The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...


Genre: Mystery

"A cracking storyteller, who can create fascinating characters, a twisty plot and wonderful surprise endings." - Ann Cleeves

"A gem of a debut novel--clever, charming, with perceptively realized characters... and the enormously appealing Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. I can't wait for the next installment." - Deborah Crombie

"Still Life is a lovely, clever book and I hope I shall be reading a lot more by Louise Penny!" - Ann Granger

"Georges Simenon kept Maigret going for over a hundred books. It will be a delight for all of us who love detective fiction if Louise Penny can stay around long enough to do the same for Gamache." - Reginald Hill

"What a joy it is to discover a detective like Armand Gamache, strong, calm and charismatic and at work on a good mystery in a believable setting." - Peter Lovesey

"An excellent, subtle plot full of understanding of the deeper places in human nature, and many wise observations that will enrich the reader long after the pages are closed." - Anne Perry

"Still Life is a masterpiece of a traditional drawing room mystery, repainted in the autumnal colors of the Canadian countryside. Louise Penny is a storytelling artist." - Julia Spencer-Fleming

"What a joy to read a crime novel written with such skill and integrity, strong on character and atmosphere...I couldn't put it down." - Margaret Yorke