Still Life (40 page)

This is for my husband Michael, who has created a life for us full of love and kindness. He allowed me to quit my job, pretend to write, then gave me unstinting praise even when what I produced was drivel. I’ve realised that anyone can be a critic but it takes a remarkable person to offer praise. Michael is that person. As is Liz Davidson, my wonderful friend and inspiration. She allowed me to steal her life, her time, her poetry and her brilliant art. And in return she got to hear about every burp from my book-baby. What luck. I’m grateful to her husband, John Ballantyne, who also allowed me to steal his life; Margaret Ballantyne-Power – more a sister than a friend – for her encouragement spanning years; and Sharon and Jim, who never failed to celebrate. Thank you to the lively and caffeinated members of Les Girls: Liz, France, Michele, Johanne, Christina, Daphne, Brigitte, and a special thank you to Cheryl for her love and her prayer stick ritual for
Still Life.
Thank you to the No Rules Book Club, to Christina Davidson Richards, Kirk Lawrence, Sheila Fischman, Neil McKenty, Cotton Aimers and Sue and Mike Riddell. Thank you to Chris Roy for giving me archery lessons and not mocking, I think.

My brothers, Rob and Doug, and their families have offered love and support without qualification.

Still Life
would never have been noticed beyond the other wonderful unpublished novels out there had it not been for the generosity of the Crime Writers’ Association in Great Britain. The CWA has created the Debut Dagger award for an unpublished first novel. I’m almost certain mine would never have been noticed had
Still Life
not been short-listed and then ‘Very Highly Commended’, coming in second for the CWA Debut Dagger in 2004. It was one of the most remarkable things to have happened to me. Here is a group of successful authors who take time to read, support and encourage new crime writers. They gave me an opportunity most of them never had, and I’ll be forever grateful. I also know it’s a gift designed to be given away.

Kay Mitchell of the CWA has been wonderful and her own novels have given me such pleasure. Thank you as well to Sarah Turner, a heroine in our household, and to Maxim Jakubowski.

My editor at Hodder Headline is Sherise Hobbs and at St Martin’s Minotaur it is Ben Sevier. They have made
Still Life
so much better through their critiques, firm suggestions and enthusiasm. It’s both an education and a pleasure to work with them.

Thank you to Kim McArthur, for taking me under her literary wing.

And, finally, my agent is Teresa Chris. It is solely because of her that
Still Life
is in your hands now. She is brilliant and fun, a great editor, pithy in the extreme and a superb agent. I am particularly fortunate to be working with her, considering I almost ran her over the first time we met – not a strategy I would recommend to new writers, but it seemed to work.

Thank you, Teresa.

I went through a period in my life when I had no friends, when the phone never rang, when I thought I would die from loneliness. I know that the real blessing here isn’t that I have a book published, but that I have so many people to thank.

STILL LIFE
. Copyright © 2005 by Louise Penny. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

“Herman Melville,” copyright 1940 and renewed 1968 by W. H. Auden “For the Time Being,” copyright 1944 and renewed 1972 by W. H. Auden, from
Collected Poems
by W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. “I Need to Say,” copyright 1995 by Liz Davidson, from
In the Cave of My Heart I Found
… by Liz Davidson. Used by permission of Liz Davidson. “Lady Mink,” “Apology,” copyright 2000 by Marylyn Plessner from
Vapour Trails
by Marylyn Plessner. Used by permission of Stephen Jarislowsky.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Penny, Louise.
   Still life / Louise Penny.—1st St. Martin’s Minotaur ed.
      p. cm.
   ISBN-13: 978-1-4299-6723-5
   ISBN-10: 0-312-35255-7

1. Police—Quebec (Province)—Fiction. 2. Victims of violent crimes— Fiction. I. Title.

PR9199.4.P464S78 2006
813′.6—dc22

2006041992

First published in Great Britain by Headline Book Publishing

First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: July 2006

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Discussion questions for The Three Pines Mysteries, by Louise Penny

1. How important is the use of humor in this book?

2. Which Three Pines villager would you most like to have cafe au lait with at the bistro?

3. Why is Ruth a villager?

4. Louise Penny says her books are about murder, but at their heart they’re about other things. What else is this book about? What are some other themes?

5. Agent Nichol is an extremely controversial character in the books. What do you think of her? What purpose does she serve

Discussion questions for Still Life

1. At the beginning of Still Life, we are told that “violent death still surprised” Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Why is that odd for a homicide detective, and how does it influence his work? What are his strengths and his weaknesses?

2. The village of Three Pines is not on any map, and when Gamache and Agent Nicole first arrive there, they see “the inevitable paradox. An old stone mill sat beside a pond, the mid-morning sun warming its fieldstones. Around it the maples and birches and wild cherry trees held their fragile leaves, like thousands of happy hands waving to them on arrival. And police cars. The snakes in Eden.” Can you find other echoes of Paradise in Three Pines, and what role do snakes—real or metaphorical—play there?

3. There are three main couples in the book: Clara and Peter, Olivier and Gabri, and Gamache and Reine-Marie. How would you characterize each of these relationships?

4. Gamache says “I’ve never met anyone uniformly kind and good,” yet no one has anything bad to say about Jane—except regarding her art. What is your impression of that art? How do you understand the game Jane used to play with Yolande and the Queen of Hearts?

5. When the charred arrowhead is found in his home, it is said that Matthew Croft “had finally been hurt beyond poetry.” How does poetry help him and other characters in this novel? Does it ever have the power to hurt? What do you think of Timmer Hadley’s idea that “there’s something about Ruth Zardo, something bitter, that resents happiness in others, and needs to ruin it. That’s probably what makes her a great poet, she knows what it is to suffer.”

6. Consider Gamache’s advice to Nichol: “Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful.” Similarly, Myrna stopped practicing psychology because she lost patience with people who lead “still” lives, “waiting for someone to save them….The fault lies with us, and only us. It’s not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it’s definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it’s us and our choices.” How do their choices affect the principal characters in the novel? Do any of their choices remind you of ones you have made in your own life?

7. There’s a huge clue to the murder early in the book, when Jane gives Ben a meaningful look and then quotes from W. H. Auden: “Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.” Why is it so easy to overlook that clue at the time, and what impact does it have when it’s quoted again in the last chapter?

8. Who do you think Gamache has in mind when he tells Gabri and Olivier: “You’re not the types to do murder. I wish I could say the same for everyone here.”

9. Clara has “very specific tastes” in murder mysteries: “Most of them were British and all were of the village cozy variety.” Do you see Still Life as a typical “cozy”? Why or why not?