A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache)

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By that time, Still Life had won many awards (including the Anthony, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Dilys, and New Blood Dagger) for Best First Novel, but not the Agatha; and we didn’t want to jinx anything by expecting her to win Best Novel for A Fatal Grace. Gamache was the best of them, the smartest and bravest and strongest because he was willing to go into his own head alone, and open all the doors there, and enter all the dark rooms. So when she was found murdered in the middle of a curling match, it’s no surprise that the townspeople are not mourning her death; rather there is a celebratory air in the village. Even the revelation that she's intelligent, cunning, and desperate enough to have arranged her mother's ingenious murder is shown hand-in-hand with a portrayal of her in a catatonic fantasy not altogether different from CC's own narcissistic delusions.

It is Christmas time in Three Pines but CC de Poitiers manages to alienate everyone she comes in contact with. I loved the way your wrote about the Hadley House, as though it were a young boy in short pants shuffling its feet and saying, “It wasn’t me that did it! The doomed CC has written a self-help book that prattles about love and enlightenment, even though she is actually like the Snow Queen from the fairytale who pierces everyone’s hearts with ice. He got out of the car and stared down at the village, each home glowing with warm and beckoning light, promising protection against a world sometimes too cold. Only by talking with everyone will Gamache learn the events that led the murderer to commit this act.

That would be more than enough to make me annoyed by this book, but its treatment of the 'good' characters is just as bad -- even worse, in a way, because the nastiness of it is so much more covert. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter—and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. And while the book talked a lot about light Saul found it interesting and ironic that it had actually been released on the winter solstice. I’m looking for a quote that I thought was from “A Fatal Grace” but may be from “The Cruelest Month”.

In doing so, Penny has attracted a legion of enthusiastic readers who, apparently, can hardly wait for each new installment of the series to appear. The tiny hamlet is populated by a cast of quirky but mostly lovable characters who spend a lot of time walking through the snow and curling up in front of blazing fires.With each breath his nostrils froze shut and the air was like an ice pack in his sinuses, shooting pain through his forehead and making his eyes tear and freeze. In the case of my book club, most of the Louise Penny fans were perfectly happy with the book, while others of us were less enthusiastic. They usually have thick cables with orange rubber coating, and the clips are massive, not little bitty alligator clips.

When Saul’s photos are developed, they somehow do not include any shots from the time of the murder. It’s a perfect setting for the last job Saul intends to do for CC, who wants pictures of herself “frolicking among the natives at Christmas. But he has enemies of his own, and as he is frozen out of decision-making in the Surete du Quebec, he has to decide who he can trust. As Gamache and the others notice the raw distaste that others had for CC, they cannot help but wonder why much of CC’s life cannot be substantiated. I feel that the surface has been barely scratched in this sub-plot and I’m so curious as to how it will play out.

This time it was the day after Christmas, the deadly winter was raging, and more people would die than ever imagined. Might she have been hiding something bigger, something even more disgusting than the tidbits she puts on display? She plans to make that place hers, and in her mind, she plans to raze all that makes the place amazing. 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. I couldn’t figure out how Elle knew about Clara’s work, to tell Clara, “I’ve always loved your work Clara”.