Mystères à Twin Peaks

Still Life by Louise Penny
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First in an ongoing and apparently well-loved mystery series; I kind of get the appeal but for me it was not quite what it wanted to be.

The main gimmick (at least for American me) is the small town Quebec setting. There's a murder by hunting arrow (or maybe it was an accident, but of course it wasn't an accident) and big city inspector Gamache and his team turn over stones in the town until they uncover the hidden secret that matters.

Characters, description and plot were satisfying for moderately long stretches--I didn't hate the book. I found the final resolution disappointing but my main complaint was there was too much showing and not enough telling. For example, putatively insightful characters or actions that I thought were shown in such detail as to seem empty puffery. This includes various interview tricks or bits of detection, but the low point for me was a long conversation in which an ex-psychiatrist (part of he local color) explains how she left the profession because realized that some people just don't want to change. This is such a cliche it's a lightbulb joke* but it's presented as if it were a politically incorrect secret that was extracted by a brave soul after a long career. Better at this point I think to skip the details and just remark on her warmth or cutting humor or whatever trait was imagined.

Maybe things tighten up in the later books--the errors seemed avoidable--but there will be other books for me instead of the sequels.

*"Just one, but it has to want to change."

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