Reply To: Still Life: Louise Penny’s writing throughout the Gamache series since Still Life
I started to enjoy the books even more from book no 4. The stories get better, the characters are more developed. The sense of belonging to a community one would like to live in grows. The books are never about the murder itself, but about the circumstances, the pain of the past, whether people got stuck there or managed to adapt. I often forget who was murdered and why, but remember lots of other things happening in the books. Unfortunately for me this feeling ended with All The Devils Are here. The three books after this one gradually went into a direction I dislike. Away from Three Pines, problems for Gamache to solve too involved with big-world politics and intrigues. I tried re-reading The Grey Wolf in anticipation of The Black Wolf and I couldn’t read it again. There are so many aspects of the book I find myself hating that I couldn’t finish it. So many improbable twists and turns. In this book Louise lost me completely. I can only hope The Black Wolf comes back within the probable though I fear it won’t. I will read it but am not really looking forward to it.
I am sorry to be so somber, and it has nothing to do with Still Life, but I feel as if a loved one is dying. And that hurts.
