Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'd give this book 10 stars if I could. Louise Penny is a wonderful writer, and I think this is her masterpiece. It is rich in character and nuance and just mesmerizing. Her novels are my catnip. I don't so much read her books as submerge myself in them. I can't explain how she does this except to say that she chooses her words carefully, builds a hypnotic story, and creates in the village of Three Pines a mystic place, not on any map - almost a modern-day Brigadoon. Several reviewers have noted that this is a stand alone book, and it is in the sense that there is a contained story, but I would argue that reading this book without having read at least some of the previous books is a mistake. Without the background, the echoes of meaning in this book are lost and the reading experience has to suffer. Louise Penny spends almost no time giving background material in her novels - she assumes you know. I've found Penny's later books to have a strong undercurrent of sadness. In this book, where so much of the story is about memory and memories, the sadness is like a veil through which the whole narrative is seen. One of the lessons of the novel is that life hands us situations, many of which are painful but we decide how they impact our future. Much of the book explores how choices compel other choices, but also how each character has the opportunity to make a new choice, a better choice and change their lives, overcome failure and bitterness and find forgiveness. In the end this is a deeply hopeful book. Louise Penny is usually considered in the class of traditional mystery writers like P.D. James and Dorothy Sayers. This is only partly true. Her books began as traditional mysteries. Still Life, her first, is a good mystery novel with interesting characters. As time went on however and her power as a novelist grew her books changed. Though they remained in the mystery genre her books have really become studies of character in a crime setting. As a writer of character and mood there is no one to touch her in the mystery field today. It didn't happen overnight, but today she is a superb novelist who happens to write about a policeman, Armand Gamache. I've read many wonderful mysteries in my life, many fine novels, but I have never read anyone in contemporary fiction with the depth and power Louise Penny brings to her best stories. Her books are luminous. Read book one: Still Life, and then read all of her other books - she will take you on a wonderful journey.