Still Life by Louise Penny

Amy  

mystery

Still Life is a whodunit mystery.  A woman in a small town south of Montreal, Canada is found dead with an arrow wound through her heart. Inspector Gamache is on the case with his two assistants as well as some helpful townspeople.

This was the first novel in Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series about which I’d heard many complimentary things. However, I had never read it because I really don’t tend to enjoy whodunits. Then a friend gave me her book to read so I felt I ought to give it a try. I ended up listening to the audiobook instead of reading her copy, though, because I was in need of an audiobook and it was available at the library.

Honestly, I did not see what was so special about this mystery or the characters. I was confused by too many characters in the beginning and actually bored during several sections. I can see how people who like to try to solve mysteries along with the inspectors would like this since Louise Penny included all the musings and contemplations from the inspector and his team. But it was just another murder mystery to me.

The characters were not developed enough for me to care about any of them, including the poor woman who was murdered, and a few behaved unbelievably at times. The only incentive to keep reading was to follow the process of solving the mystery. Sadly, this incentive wasn’t sufficient for me. But I’m glad I read it so now I know I don’t need to read any more in this series.

On a positive note, I really loved the plainly stated opinion of a character who was a psychologist: “I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life…Life is change. If [they] aren’t growing and evolving [they]’re standing still…Waiting for someone to save them or at least protect them from the big, bad world. The thing is no one else can save them because the problem is theirs and so is the solution. Only they can get out of it.”

The audiobook narrator, Ralph Cosham, inexplicably spoke with a British accent in this novel set in the area of Canada that speaks both French and English.  Therefore, he would never have been my choice for narrating this one. Also, he had a very small repertoire of unique voices. His voice acting wasn’t bad but I felt this audiobook could have been cast better. Of course, this audio CD recording is over 15 years old and, perhaps, there weren’t a lot of voice actors to choose from at that time. I give him a B.