Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called out to the town of Three Pines, where artist and beloved local icon Jane Neal has been found dead. At first this appears to be a hunting accident; Neal has been shot with an arrow in the middle of the woods. But all is not what it appears, and soon Gamache is trying to decipher who, in this tight-knit and small community could’ve killed Neal.
I’m not much of a fan of the whole cozy genre, and I didn’t know that this fell into that category. Three Pines, in that regard, is a little too idyllic for me: wonderful historic residences, all dolled up; a picture-perfect inn with quirks and idiosyncrasies where the furniture is for sale. The town is populated with poets and painters, and even those who have a more down to earth job are pensive and artistic. I half expected the Gilmore Girls to wander in halfway through, except the book doesn’t have enough humour for that (and thank God for that; I feel like that particular kind of snappy banter would make the entire thing insufferable).
The mystery itself is fairly solid, though the conclusion was a little off to me, almost too simple for such a well-structured novel. Nevertheless it kept me guessing for a good long time about the direction in which it was going to go. Gamache himself is okay as a protagonist; I’m going to guess he’ll be fleshed out a bit more in future books, but as it stands he’s a bit too perfect: too pensive, too smart, too nice. There’s also an auxiliary character, new to the force, who almost seems shoehorned in. It’s as if Penny never quite knew how to write her the way she wanted to; she’s remarkably unsubtle and veers from one extreme to the other, which makes her both annoying and unbelievable. A side plot with three young boys starts off interesting but ends up rather predictable and a little cliché. It feels like a missed opportunity.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book’s loving descriptions of small-town Canada in autumn, and Gamache’s pensive attitude and approach are a breath of fresh air. He, at least, doesn’t think he’s perfect – far from it – and is liked and respected by both his superiors and his subordinates. Where most characters in similar situations are loose cannons and rogue agents, it’s good to see someone who actually knows how the rules work and who can work together with his team rather than setting off on his own.
The book wasn’t quite what I expected, but it kept me engaged long enough to make me want to try a second volume. I’m curious where that will take me.
