Still Life (Armand Gamache Series #1) » (Unabridged, 9 CDs, 780 minutes)

LOUISE PENNY’s first Armand Gamache mystery, Still Life, won the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards; her second, A Fatal Grace, won the 2007 Agatha Award for Best Novel; and her third, The Cruelest Month, was #1 on the hardcover IMBA bestseller list in March 2008, and her fourth, A Rule Against Murder, was a New York Times bestseller. She lives in a small village south of Montreal.

As the early morning mist clears on Thanksgiving Sunday, the homes of Three Pines come to life—all except one…

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montréal and yet a world away. Jane Neal, a long-time resident of Three Pines, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it's a tragic hunting accident and nothing more but Gamache smells something foul this holiday season…and is soon certain that Jane died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter. …

STILL LIFE

With this award-winning first novel, Louise Penny introduces an engaging hero in Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces—and this series—with power, ingenuity, and charm.

"[An] auspicious debut… [Penny's] deceptively simple style masks the complex patterns of a well-devised plot."—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"A perfectly executed traditional mystery."—Denver Post

The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio

… like her neighbors in the picturesque Canadian village of Three Pines, the dear old thing had hidden depths, courtesy of an author whose deceptively simple style masks the complex patterns of a well-devised plot - rather like the subtle designs of Jane's "primitive" pictures. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, who is as bemused as we are by life in Three Pines, has the wit and insight to look well beyond its idyllic surface.