There are some red herrings that I fell for and while I did correctly guess a few pieces of this one, I didn’t have all of the pieces figured out. I was shocked by Gamache not actually trying to help Crie, but all the characters were shocked that he did. And for a while it seemed that it was only the characters who were being cruel but then I read this passage about a 12 year old girl. Description: Welcome to winter in Three Pines, a picturesque village in Quebec, where the villagers are preparing for a traditional country Christmas, and someone is preparing for murder. I struggled to really get into this book, seemed a long time introducing the characters before the story got going.

He accepts it and is a very happy guy anyway, either because of or in spite of continuous inner reflection.Sayers and Agatha Christie, drew up a list of rules for crime fiction that included the following: “No clue that is important to the solution of the puzzle may be concealed from the reader.

The difficulty was the sheer nastinesss of C C de Poitiers - she had absolutely no redeeming feature. The artist had photographed it and had somehow captured a sense of movement without making it disorienting. Heading meaning Three Pines reminds me of the movie Fargo, the people you met but this place Three Pines is so warm and inviting you don't want to leave, or put your book down as you wrap yourself up in the investigation with Chief Inspector Gamache. I believe I didn’t meet Louise and her husband, Michael, in person until Malice Domestic in Crystal City, VA, in the spring of 2008.She has also created a richly-imagined setting in the charming Canadian village of Three Pines, which is located somewhere just south of Montreal. This is the one with a shocking curling match, a stinky dedication, and a weird ball retrieved from a dumpster. All of this makes her the perfect Christie-style murder victim -- the reader is glad when she's dead, but justice must still be done, so there's the pleasure of the investigation without the grief of a sympathetic character dying, plus suspects are thick on the ground because everyone disliked her. In Still Life I was introduced to the inspector and his team and fell in love with Three Pines, the little village where the action takes place.

I know I will and I’ll not be waiting until I go to an out of town library until I read the next installment. I guess it’s a thread that will perhaps run through the next several books, sort of tying them all together. So if you love mystery and rare, rich setting; if you long for unique characters and meaning deep as bones, then don't miss A FATAL GRACE. The beauty of Louise Penny's auspicious debut novel, Still Life , is that it's composed entirely of grace notes, all related to the central mystery of who shot an arrow into the heart of Miss Jane Neal.They were as warm and brilliant and funny as you might imagine from reading Louise’s books, and it’s been a joy to work with her ever since. In book two, there's another murder to solve for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his crew as the repulsively cruel CC De Poitiers is no more. CC is talk of the town, though not for anything she has done, even though she’d be happy to espouse her new-age way of living.