New Mystery Author: Louise Penny!

I have not been blogging, because I have spent this entire Labor Day weekend reading Louise Penny mysteries! I got the first two at the public library (Still Life and Dead Cold) and was definitely hooked. Although I searched the library system, I could find no others and so I keep buying them for my Kindle!

I usually buy such good books, so I can loan them, but these could not be delayed--and so I keep reading them. I am finding that each successive book is better than the last, because the character development continues so splendidly.

These books take place in Quebec, usually in a small town called Three Pines, where recurring characters, including artists and a grumpy poetess, occur as murders keep cropping up in that locale. The main character is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete de Quebec. He has kind, brown eyes and likes to quote poetry, while being very aware and accepting of others, always with authority.

These are newly favorite mysteries, reminding me of Jacqueline Winspear's series about Maisie Dobbs. The character development and attention to psychological/emotional responses of persons help to keep me intrigued.

Here is a chronological listing of Louise Perry's books in this series:

1. Still Life
2. A Fatal Grace
   
3. The Cruelist Month
4. A Rule Against Murder
5. The Brutal Telling
6. Bury Your Dead
7. A Trick of the Light

Armand Gamache was told, sometime in the past, these words, which are repeated in each book:

"Where there is love, there is courage
Where there is courage, there is peace
Where there is peace, there is God.
And when you have God, you have everything."

Good words to live by.