Guest Blog – Still Life by Louise Penny

Canadian author Louise Penny is relatively new on the mystery writing scene. Her first book, Still Life published in 2005, won the New Blood Dagger in Britain and the Arthur Ellis Award in Canada for best first crime novel. Since then she has received more awards for her writing. Her novel, The Cruelest Month, won the Agatha Award..

It was by chance that I picked her first novel off the bookshelves at McGill’s library. It was a good introduction to her inspector, Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Quebec and the small town of Three Pines.

Penny lives in a small town south of Montreal close to the US border. That is the setting of Three Pines. Still Life is a very comfortable cozy mystery and I enjoyed it very much. I decided early on who the murder was and was surprised when I discovered that I was wrong in the last few pages. Of course, if I had been thinking while I was reading, I would have seen the clues leading to the revelation of the killer. I am not sure whether Penny is available in the US. Probably not at my local library. I might have to try to read more of her novels in the next few weeks before I head back to the United States. I liked her inspector and I liked her character Clara Morrow in this first novel. When I read about Penny on the Internet I was delight to find that both Gamache and Clara appear in later books. Another good reason to read more Penny.