Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published May 1, 2007 by St. Martin's Paperbacks.
my family calls these the "inspector fromage" books. I am not generally a mystery reader but my mom loves these so I'm gonna try them :)
Still Life combines elements of a cozy (small intimate community, violence occurring off stage) with a police procedural (the detective is a genial detective from out of town). The community secrets are a bit too abstractly complicated for me to really love the mystery, but it's good enough to be interesting.
Intriguing though a little bit confusing; I found the and confusing, but probably, if I reread it, it will clear itself up. I like the characters who are well developed and, for the most part, believable (see my comment about being confused at the end). This strikes me as a new series to explore more fully. Although familiarity with art and painting probably have been useful, it clearly is not necessary.
3.5 rounded down because I expected better but it's not bad--first of a series and I'm going on to the second but it reads like it was written way before 2007, maybe back when "human bean" was still a new joke. The Nicole character didn't seem to belong in the story. Maybe she shows up in future books and her introduction wasn't a mistake.
It had some 4 star observations and the characters were mostly amusing. I didn't guess "who done it" in advanced, so good enough plotting, though the murderer trying to kill an important character while the police were desperately looking for her has been done way too often and should be against the law.
People have been telling me for ages that these are wonderful and I must read them; my usual non-history fare (politics, current events) just doesn’t hold me at present so I decided to give these a shot. I’ve read better mysteries, but I’ve certainly read worse. On to the next one.
This novel offered an interesting plot & characters, wonderful cultural descriptions. This is a worthwhile read by an author I had never read before. I think I'll try another tale of Armand Gamache... ;^)
I read this on the recommendation of my supervisor at the library I work at, and was surprisingly entertained. I don't normally read novels in this genre, but something about the writing style, plot, and characters appealed to me. The backstories (of which there were many) were fleshed out, and left me feeling like I knew everybody from Three Pines like family. I look forward to reading the other books in this particular series.
