"....violent death still surprised him. Which was odd, for the head of homicide..." And so Louise Penny introduces Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and a series that deftly combines the best elements of cozy mysteries and police procedurals, transcending both subgenres. With grace and integrity, Inspector Gamache seeks not only the facts of the case, but the truth of the matter. Humanity, not in general, but in the varied, complex characters who inhabit Three Pines, is the true focus of this investigation. Highly recommended.

As a Canadian I love that it's set in Canada, and all the Canadian references. Her characters are well drawn and realistic, I feel like I have met all of these people. Also, her writing is really funny, laugh-out-loud at times.

One thing that surprised me is that this doesn't really seem like a mystery, because it's clear who the murderer is right from the very first scene that they are in, as soon as the character is introduced. I'm not sure why the author gives it away like that? Throughout the rest of the book there was never any doubt about who the murderer was.

I read a lot of old British mysteries, where the author misleads you into thinking it's each character in turn, until a twist at the end. So I kept thinking "there must be a twist at the end?" but there wasn't, it was the person I thought it was all along, and there was no attempt to mislead you along the way.

So as a mystery it's not exactly a mystery! But as a story it's an enjoyable read, with great characters. I will read the next one.

Not a huge fan of cozy mysteries but Penny has a solid gift for storytelling. This is a love letter for Quebec and the Eastern Provinces. Her detective, Armand Gamache, is someone that is both relatable and not a detective you would come to dislike later on. He's patient and well thought out. The cast of characters is unique, quirky, and relatable. I could see these folks in a small town. Being from Vermont, I can relate to the idea of Twelve Pines (the fictional community and murder capital of the world). This is Penny's first mystery novel and I already noticed an improvement in her second and subsequent books. They are relatively easy reads, fun, and solid "whodunnits." They're fun.

If you are looking for more of a police procedural and gritty detective story, I would strongly recommend Archer Mayor who writes the Joe Gunther Mysteries, which takes place in Vermont -- specifically Open Season, his first novel. Those are excellent mysteries, grittier than Penny, but also a love song to the geography of Vermont. Regardless, Penny is a class act. I enjoyed this.

'Three Pines is made up of good people, but one of us is festering.' The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...

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I feel like I'm the last person to jump on the Louise Penny train, but I am so glad that I did.

I loved this book--I loved the town of Three Pines, I loved Inspector Gamache, and I loved that I did not figure this mystery out! I mean, I thought I had. However, my guess came late in the book and I was blindsided when the reveal was made. That will make nearly any book a winner for me.

I have read a number of comments that this book was slow. That was not my experience. Granted, it may be because I was so taken by the world that Penny creates. However, the fact that Penny took the time to walk through all the steps and bits of this mystery. The necessary clues are there, but you probably won't see them without some hindsight.

Anyway, count me in as a Penny fan. I'm off the read all of her other books now.

My book club just loves Louise Penny. I thought it was intriguing and complicated at the very end. But they solved the crime. On to the 2nd book.

An easy read - pretty standard murder mystery. Jane has used her house as her palette to record all the events in a Canadian town. Her death reveals all of the secrets of the town including her killer.

I have read all her books. I love them mostly because I don't know Whodunnit until the end. Hope she keeps it up. The movie wasn't very good but it was nice to see the town and the people but the man who played Gamache wasn't right. Still everyone was good, especially the one in the monastery.

The first two pages were promising. Then it went downhill. I was told that it had great characters- well, after 30 pages all I had were a bunch of names and useless descriptions. And a small town in which, apparently, everyone is a successful artist/antique dealer/bookseller... yet there aren't very many tourists. How is that supposed to work?

Is this what modern fiction is like? Maybe that's why I don't read much of it...