Sorry for not writing on here in a little while. Been busy and too hard to maintain this blog although I’ve been reading a lot still.
I just recently went through all of the books by Louise Penny.
For those who don’t know, Louise is from Canada. Toronto, I believe. She got into mystery writing in 2005 and the first book she wrote was Still Life, which was the beginning of the Inspector Gamache series.
Like all the books, it takes place in Three Pines. A dead body is found in the woods, and Gamache comes to investigage. The area of Three Pines is so cool too as it is this very small community and they don’t even have any crime. Yet we’ve got a dead body so there’s got to be some evil somewhere!
This was a fantastic book. Trust me – you read that one and you’ll be hooked on this entire series. It actually won a ton of awards too. Like the Arthur Ellis Award which is given for winning the best first crime novel, and both Anthony Award and Barry Award. It was also 2nd place on the Debut Dagger competition.
Louise got her start in books by reading the likes of Agatha Christie. You can really tell that Agatha had an influence on her. A lot of her books still go with the whole “whodunit” theme to them so you have a list of suspects and you have to figure out what the deal is with them and who it was that committed the crime.
You can check out a list of Louise Penny Books books at that website.
Louise has only written in the Gamache series so far and normally writes one per year. As of this writing there are 13 books in the series although that includes the short story The Hangman.
I went through them all recently and read every single one. I just couldn’t get enough I have to say.
Still Life is probably my favourite however I also have a soft spot for The Cruellest Month which was the third book in the series.
I always find with authors that sometimes they can have a great debut novel but struggle to keep it going. I’m reading the new Paula Hawkins book at the moment for example and I have to admit I’m struggling to read it.
However with Penny – man, she just gets better with age. Her writing is fantastic too. One big thing about the Penny books I find is the descriptions and observations she uses within her books. You honestly feel part of the three pines world. You can stop, close your eyes and just picture everything. And I mean it can be as simple as describing a house that is marked for sale and how dilapidated it is. Just talk about the paint peeling and missing tiles etc and you’re picturing that one house.
If you’re a fan of mysteries I can only ghive the Gamache series my highest recommendation. She is on my must buy list for sure.
Monthly Book Reviews 