I am a little sad that I can't give Still Life more than 2 stars. It was recommended to me and it's not a pleasant task to trash someone's suggestion, but what can I do, this book was just a barely OK read for me.
Still Life is a traditional ("cozy") mystery set in a Canadian village Three Pines. One Sunday morning a body of 76-year old Jane Neal - a long-time resident of the village - is found. At first, it appears that Jane was killed in a hunting accident, but later we find out that quite a few seemingly ordinary and upstanding villagers have some secrets to hide and maybe reasons to murder the old lady.
On a positive side, I enjoyed learning a little about Quebec. I personally never knew that there was a tension between Quebec and the rest of Canada and also a lot of friction between francophones and anglophones. Archery/hunting details were interesting as well.
As for the rest, the book didn't live up to my expectations. Poor characterization simply killed the story for me. The characters were drawn in a strange way and their back stories introduced awkwardly. I couldn't understand their motivations and actions. Too often they acted immaturely (Yvette Nichol) or weirdly hysterical (Carol Marrow, Yolanda). Dialog was very stilted at times too, often I had no idea what people were talking about and why they found certain things funny.
I suppose I should have cut Louise Penny some slack, it was her first novel after all. But the book was rather poorly written even for the first effort. I am surprised Still Life managed to receive so much critical recognition and mainly positive Goodreads ratings. Did the mystery standards go down since Agatha Christie's death? I guess the success of this book is the biggest mystery to me...Get more detail about Still Life (An Inspector Armand Gamache - Three Pines Mystery #1).
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