Penny’s characters daydream, they pontificate and they exchange theories about the nature of people. If these kinds of reflections make you impatient to get back to the crime at hand, this might not be the book for you. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.’ ‘I think many people love their problems. If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.’ However, the title also refers to the notion of a life not properly lived, seen when the Chief Inspector finds himself discussing with an ex-psychiatrist how lives can be wasted: Given the focus on art throughout the story (it’s crucial to the whole plot), you might expect the ‘Still Life’ of the title to refer simply to still life paintings.
This is cosy crime with art at the centre. Someone meant to murder quiet, retired Jane Neal, but why? Could it possibly have anything to do with her recently unveiled artwork? If so – what? What’s it like? However, when Chief Inspector Gamache is sent from Montreal to investigate, he soon discovers that it would have been almost impossible for the shooting to be an accident. It was a wise person who knew that some hunters–not all, but some–found it a challenging to distinguish a pine from a partridge from a person.’ And, unbelievably, they sometimes shot themselves, perhaps in a psychotic episode where they mistook themselves for dinner. ‘Every year the hunters shot cows and horses and family pets and each other.
When Miss Jane Neal is found dead in the forest on Thanksgiving weekend – apparently shot by an arrow – the locals assume it is a hunting accident. I’m glad I did, as I have a suspicion that these books should really be read in order. Something else always edged in front: a book with a read-by deadline, or one I couldn’t resist anymore.įinally, a member of my book group suggested we should all try reading some Louise Penny, at which point I thought I might as well start with book one in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. There was obviously something about the plots I found appealing – or at least the blurbs! But. It clearly caught my eye enough for me to buy it, and, in fact, I recently added a second Louise Penny title to my collection, still without having ever read the first.
This is one of those ‘it caught my eye, but’ books.
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