Still Life is the first novel in Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series. Published in 2005, it introduces Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and the fictional Quebec village of Three Pines.
The story begins when Jane Neal, a retired schoolteacher and artist, is found dead in the woods near Three Pines. Gamache and his homicide team investigate a community whose apparent warmth hides old rivalries, secrets, and tensions. The novel established the series’ recurring combination of traditional detection, character-driven drama, and the atmosphere of rural Quebec.
Still Life was Penny’s debut novel and won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel in 2007. It is commonly confused with A Fatal Grace, which follows it, or The Cruelest Month, the third Gamache novel. The Nature of the Beast belongs much later in the series, so none of those titles is the series opener.