I really love to read mystery novels and Louise Penny is my all-time favourite Canadian author. She is an award-winning Anglophone author living in Knowlton, QC. She writes mystery novels about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté de Québec, and his family and friends who live in the fictional village of Three Pines, somewhere in the Eastern Townships close to Montreal.
The way she describes the village and its inhabitants creates the image of a peaceful, harmonious and life. But no matter how sheltered they are, they all have to deal with unpleasant events every once in a while. In the case of Three Pines, these unpleasant events are often a bit more common than the national average.
Louise Penny often uses themes in her books inspired by the arts, music, or poetry. For example, an excerpt from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem” can be found in her second book “A Fatal Grace” but also as the title of her tenth book, “How the Light Gets In” , with the theme of the beauty of imperfection.
One of her recurring themes makes me every time. There is the character of Ruth, an , rather rude poet with a pet duck. The title of one of her books is I’m FINE. Gamache’s wife, a librarian, notices that FINE is an acronym (an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word) and not the adjective fine. So they ask Ruth what it stands for. Her answer: F**cked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical. From then on, the characters refer to this meaning of I’m fine/FINE fairly regularly.
Earlier this year Louise Penny announced that she was collaborating with Hillary Clinton on “State of Terror”, a political thriller which will be published on October 12. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, in early September she that the Three Pines series will become a TV show starring British actor Alfred Molina as Armand Gamache. Fans of the novels have been waiting for this news for a very long time. It is currently being filmed here in Québec and will be released on Amazon Prime sometime in 2022.
A last fun fact about Louise Penny: Her books were translated into 23 languages before they were translated into Québec French. If you love mysteries with a side of philosophy and psychology, I highly recommend checking her out.
Suitable for English students intermediate and up.