A Rule Against Murder

Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series burst onto the mystery scene in 2005 with her debut novel, Still Life. In it, she introduces two iconic features of the series: Armand Gamache and the village of Three Pines. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is, in some ways, a classic detective in the style of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.

With Three Pines, Penny has created a village that has become a favorite among her readers. The village is idyllic and isolated from the world, seeming to exist outside of normal space and time. In A Rule Against Murder, even though the main action of the novel doesn’t take place in Three Pines, Penny takes the reader there with a mailman who sets the scene: “It always amused him to imagine that Three Pines, nestled among the mountains and surrounded by Canadian forest, was disconnected from the outside world. It certainly felt that way. It was a relief” (5). Throughout the series, whenever a character visits Three Pines for the first time, they respond with an immediate sense of well-being and belonging. Many books in the series take place in Three Pines, and Gamache always returns eagerly, considering the village a home away from his home in urban Montreal.