Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published May 1, 2007 by St. Martin's Paperbacks.
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.
My wife and I read this together, taking turns reading aloud. If not for our mutual shock and awe at how not-for-us the book was, I wouldn't have been able to finish it. We laughed at the writing, and snuck in (what should have been) ridiculous embellishments to see if the other would catch it ("Wait, does it really say that?!") This made it all the better (or worse) when the answer was, "Yes, it's really in the book. Look!" (For those who might take pause, I assure you after a beat any unnoticed embellishments were revealed by the current reader before proceeding.)
Neither of us reads modern "cozy" murder mysteries, so maybe we're lacking the experience or context required to appreciate a book like this. I'm told the series gets better, but so far the first third of the next book (we're trying to give the first three a …
My wife and I read this together, taking turns reading aloud. If not for our mutual shock and awe at how not-for-us the book was, I wouldn't have been able to finish it. We laughed at the writing, and snuck in (what should have been) ridiculous embellishments to see if the other would catch it ("Wait, does it really say that?!") This made it all the better (or worse) when the answer was, "Yes, it's really in the book. Look!" (For those who might take pause, I assure you after a beat any unnoticed embellishments were revealed by the current reader before proceeding.)
Neither of us reads modern "cozy" murder mysteries, so maybe we're lacking the experience or context required to appreciate a book like this. I'm told the series gets better, but so far the first third of the next book (we're trying to give the first three a chance due to receiving them as a gift) doubles down on the worst aspects of the first book.
Cheers to all of those who enjoy the series. And hugs to all of those as traumatized by this book as we were.
I love a good murder mystery, and I usually enjoy charming inspectors, like Hercule Poirot, and so the books about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache caught my eye. Unfortunately, it was probably the most boring book I have read this year.
An older lady is found shot by an arrow in the small community of Three Pines and Gamache comes to town to solve this homicide. We meet a quirky cast of characters that miraculously didn't have a single character I connected with. Gamache himself isn't charming or particularly smart, I didn't care for his staffers. Nothing about this mystery was exciting in any shape or form. I usually fell asleep within 2-5 pages of reading. Only by sheer force of will did I push through this book to find out whodunnit. That finale left me about as excited as the rest of the book. Giving this series a hard pass.
2.5 rounded down.
I had heard good things about this book so when the audio version came available at the library, I nabbed it. Unfortunately, my experience wasn't nearly as positive as many reviews had promised.
Before going into why it didn't work for me, I want to say that I enjoyed the narration. Lots of French in this book so I appreciated being able to hear proper pronunciations and a nice accent. I also found myself connecting with some of the characters and chuckling here and there or feeling some empathy for them. The mystery, itself, was sort of fun to follow. Even though I pegged the killer very early on, I didn't have much evidence. But to be fair, there wasn't much evidence to go on for that person.
Now for the things that made me groan and, at one point, move the book to my "quit but …
2.5 rounded down.
I had heard good things about this book so when the audio version came available at the library, I nabbed it. Unfortunately, my experience wasn't nearly as positive as many reviews had promised.
Before going into why it didn't work for me, I want to say that I enjoyed the narration. Lots of French in this book so I appreciated being able to hear proper pronunciations and a nice accent. I also found myself connecting with some of the characters and chuckling here and there or feeling some empathy for them. The mystery, itself, was sort of fun to follow. Even though I pegged the killer very early on, I didn't have much evidence. But to be fair, there wasn't much evidence to go on for that person.
Now for the things that made me groan and, at one point, move the book to my "quit but will go back" shelf. I dropped it for a couple of days but, in the end, wanted to find out why Jane had been killed.
First off, the jumping POVs drove me crazy. Some authors can make it work - I've heard JK Rowling is a head hopper with the Harry Potter series. (No, I've not read them - YET!) I don't remember it being an issue in her Robert Galbraith books or with Casual Vacancy though. Anyway, the head hopping is what ultimately made me put the book away. It still bothered me when I decided to keep going but I did my best to ignore it.
Another thing that bothered me was that some of the clues - particularly toward the end when it seemed pretty obvious how to identify the killer - were completely missed by the detectives. I understand that the reader gets more info than any individual character but it was right there.
So, I'm glad I finished the book but unless the POV switching was eliminated in later books in the series, I don't see myself reading another.
