In the idyllic small town of Three Pines, Quebec, where people don’t even lock their doors, a beloved local woman is found in the woods with an arrow shot through her heart. The locals believe it must be a hunting accident, but the police inspector senses something is off. The story is constructed as a classic whodunit but it feels like anything but, with its deliberate pacing, dry wit, and lyrical writing. A stunningly good first novel. Still Life is the first in a series that keeps getting better. Great on audio.

A missing celebrity, a fatality at the Champlain Bridge, a Sûreté in turmoil under corrupt leadership: Folks may be feeling festive in Three Pines as Christmas draws near, but Gamache’s world is in chaos. This book, which takes its title from a Leonard Cohen lyric, adroitly balances the baffling murder investigation of an elderly woman with the excruciating drama gutting the Sûreté—and Gamache’s own inner circle—from within. (Another book in the "addictive series you'll wish would never end" category of the 2016 Summer Reading Guide!)

This is book 13 in the series; you don't have to read these novels in order, but I recommend it: you'll miss the richness of her plot lines and characters if you jump in midstream. Penny's whodunit plot lines are an excuse to explore human nature, granting them a depth and psychological astuteness not often found in this genre. We're back in fictional Three Pines for this one: imagine the cozy feel and quirky characters of Stars Hollow, with fewer teenagers, more murder, and a smidge less levity.

In the opening pages of this installment, a stranger is found murdered on the floor of Olivier’s Bistro. Olivier and his partner, Gabri, claim they don’t know the victim, but it quickly becomes clear to Gamache that that’s not the whole truth. Three Pines residents are forced to confront the unthinkable: Could the murderer really be the man who tends the hearth of the bistro, the symbolic heart of village life? “Thomas Hobbes said that hell is truth seen too late,” Louise Penny wrote on Goodreads. “That’s the vortex around which The Brutal Telling swirls.”

This eighth installment of Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series takes place when "the lock on the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups is drawn back, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer, they grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices. Before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between." The reviews on this call Penny "utterly reliable, utterly enchanting" (Herald Sun) and "ingenious, gripping and elegant... an utterly magical read."

Booklist calls this "Another gem from the endlessly astonishing Penny." The New York Times says "Ms. Penny's books mix some classic elements of the police procedural with a deep-delving psychology, as well as a sorrowful sense of the precarious nature of human goodness, and the persistence of its opposite, even in rural Edens like Three Pines."

In the 11th installment of Penny's Three Pines series, a young boy stumbles upon an inexplicable, frightening something that's been hiding in the woods for a long, long time, revealing that the town's history is darker than anyone imagined.

The new Chief Inspector Gamache novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author.

When a peculiar letter arrives inviting Armand Gamache to an abandoned farmhouse, the former head of the Sûreté du Québec discovers that a complete stranger has named him one of the executors of her will. Still on suspension, and frankly curious, Gamache accepts and soon learns that the other two executors are Myrna Landers, the bookseller from Three Pines, and a young builder.

None of them had ever met the elderly woman.

The will is so odd and includes bequests that are so wildly unlikely that Gamache and the others suspect the woman must have been delusional. But what if, Gamache begins to ask himself, she was perfectly sane?

When a body is found, the terms of the bizarre will suddenly seem less peculiar and far more menacing.

But it isn’t the only menace Gamache is facing.

The investigation into what happened six months ago―the events that led to his suspension―has dragged on, into the dead of winter. And while most of the opioids he allowed to slip though his hands, in order to bring down the cartels, have been retrieved, there is one devastating exception.

Enough narcotic to kill thousands has disappeared into inner city Montreal. With the deadly drug about to hit the streets, Gamache races for answers.

As he uses increasingly audacious, even desperate, measures to retrieve the drug, Armand Gamache begins to see his own blind spots. And the terrible things hiding there.

From the publisher: "#1 New York Times best-selling author of the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels, Louise Penny brings her 'nerve and skill—as well as heart' (Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post) to selecting the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year. Louise Penny in her introduction. “In a short story there is nowhere to hide. Each must be original, fresh, inspired.” Originality is just what’s in store for readers of the twenty clever, creative selections in The Best American Mystery Stories 2018. There’s no hiding from a Nigerian confidence game, a drug made of dinosaur bones, a bombing at an oil company, a reluctant gunfighter in the Old West, and the many other scams, dangers, and thrills lurking in its suspenseful pages. The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 includes T. C. Boyle, James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Charlaine Harris, Andrew Klavan, Martin Limón, Joyce Carol Oates, and others."

A favorite series, set in a tiny village in Quebec. These mysteries are unlike anything I'd ever read: the whodunit plot lines are just an excuse to explore human nature, granting them a depth and psychological astuteness I never expected from this genre. (Note: if I thought Three Pines was a real place, I'd move there in a heartbeat.) These are great on audio.

A favorite series, set in a tiny village in Quebec. These mysteries are unlike anything I'd ever read: the whodunit plot lines are just an excuse to explore human nature, granting them a depth and psychological astuteness I never expected from this genre. (Note: if I thought Three Pines was a real place, I'd move there in a heartbeat.) These are great on audio.

I loved the first book in Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series, Still Life, so much that I included it in the minimalist summer reading guide. (I got Will hooked on the series, too, which is always high praise.) 

From the publisher: "While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request. He's asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university. While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture. They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. When a murder is committed it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion. And the madness of crowds."

Penny's mysteries are alternately centered in the cozy village of Three Pines and the wider world. For this excellent follow-up to the game-changing Bury Your Dead, Inspector Gamache returns to Three Pines to solve a murder that's intimately tied to the world of fine art. The story is built around the concept of chiaroscuro—the contrast between dark and light that's significant in some artists' works, and in all our natures. It may sound obtuse, but Penny probes with a light hand. It works.

From the publisher: "It’s spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge. But something has. As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators’ lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village of Three Pines. But to what end? Gamache and Beauvoir’s memories of that tragic case, the one that first brought them together, come rushing back. As Chief Inspector Gamache works to uncover answers, his alarm grows when a letter written by a long dead stone mason is discovered. When the room is found, the villagers decide to open it up. As the bricks are removed, Gamache, Beauvoir and the villagers discover a world of curiosities. There are puzzles within puzzles, and hidden messages warning of mayhem and revenge."

There was never a question I'd continue with the Inspector Gamache series (although I will say that book 3 wasn't my favorite) but the series moves to the next level in this sixth installment, in which Penny finally brings a plotline she's only hinted at in previous books front and center, and it is riveting.

From the publisher: "Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning. Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command, and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. Their hunt grows increasingly desperate, even frantic, as the enormity of the creature they’re chasing becomes clear. If they fail the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages. Including Three Pines."

The Washington Post called this, "Deep and grand and altogether extraordinary....Miraculous."

From the publisher: "#1 New York Times bestselling author Louse Penny's beloved Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery novels have received critical acclaim, won numerous awards, and have enthralled millions of readers. Featuring Chief Inspector of Homicide Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec."

From the publisher: "Welcome to winter in Three Pines, a picturesque village in Quebec, where the villagers are preparing for a traditional country Christmas, and someone is preparing for murder. No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter—and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. CC de Poitiers managed to alienate everyone, right up until the moment of her death. When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, of the Sûreté du Quebec, is called to investigate, he quickly realizes he's dealing with someone quite extraordinary." Add Audible narration for $3.99.

These mysteries are unlike anything I'd ever read: the whodunit plot lines are just an excuse to explore human nature, granting them a depth and psychological astuteness I never expected from this genre. Because a small village can realistically only absorb so much murder, Penny sends Gamache away from Three Pines for his murder investigations roughly every other book. In this installment, Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, retreat to the luxurious Manoir Bellechasse to celebrate their anniversary, only to find that the wealthy, cultured, and absolutely unbearable Finney clan has descended upon the place for an ill-tempered family reunion. When somebody turns up murdered, it’s obvious to all that the killer must still be at the manor. If you enjoy mysteries with a closed circle of suspects, you’re going to love this one. Louise Penny is a Summer Reading Guide pick and an author worth binge reading.