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SEE JANE READ

Pretend you’re Canadian: Enjoy a mysterious Thanksgiving in October. With Jane Julius Honchell

The chance discovery of Louise Penny’s utterly charming mystery series has caused me to give thanks early this year. Getting a jump on Thanksgiving is entirely appropriate, since Penny’s first book in the series, “Still Life,” takes place during the Canadian Thanksgiving, which falls on the second Monday in October.

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Once you’ve read “Still Life,” you’ll thank your lucky stars, too, even if you’re not a mystery fan. I know, I know. By now you’re probably sick of me writing about mystery stories, but I really couldn’t help myself on this one. It would be criminal not to encourage you to read this endearing book. If I had to characterize “Still Life” is a word, I would call it “cozy.”

All but one of the books in Penny’s Inspector Gamache series that I’ve read so far are set an idyllic little village in Quebec Province called Three Pines. While there’s nothing mysterious about this lovely, rural hamlet, the fact that it doesn’t appear on any map and is unusually serene reminds me of Shangri-La or Brigadoon. One might even think of it as a modern-day Eden, but even Eden had its snake.

The characters who populate Three Pines are, for the most part, just as charming as their town. Penny has a way of making us like them and want to have them as friends. Fortunately, most of them show up again in the books that follow “Still Life,” so if you get hooked, as I did, you’ll have plenty of chances to get to know these interesting, quirky folks better.

Central to all of the books in the series are Clara and Peter Morrow, a married couple, both artists, who are nearly mirror images of one another. Although Clara’s art has yet to sell, she just keeps on painting. She exudes warmth and kindness, and everything about her is out of control: her hair is unmanageable, her clothing disheveled and crumbs of food seem drawn to her person like malicious little magnets. Peter has already achieved some fame as an artist, and is Mr. Neat Person: controlled, seemingly unemotional and very private. Opposites, in this case, do indeed attract, and the Morrows are crazy about each other.

They have a passel of friends who arrive regularly at their little cottage for potluck suppers. On the Friday before Thanksgiving, the Morrows welcome Olivier Brule and his partner, Gabri DuBeau, who run the local bed and breakfast and a classy bistro that serves mouth-watering food; Ruth Zardo, a prickly, bitter, profane woman who is an accomplished poet and the town’s fire chief; Ben Hadley, Peter’s best friend, whose family owned the now-defunct lumber mill; Myra Landers, a former psychologist from Montreal, who left her practice to open a bookshop in Three Pines and is one of Clara’s best friends; and, beloved by all, but especially by Clara, Miss Jane Neal, 76, the town’s retired school mistress.

Although she is generous with her affection, Jane, who is also an artist, is amazingly secretive. Until the day of the party, no one has been permitted to see any of her work, nor have even her dearest friends been allowed any further into her home than the kitchen. However, on this fateful Friday, Jane enters a painting in the local juried show. Called Fair Day, the painting depicts all of the residents of Three Pines at a parade. At first glance, it is a very bad painting. Clara thinks to herself, “If Neanderthals had county fairs, this is what they’d have looked like.” But her husband, whose judgment carries a lot of weight with the jurors, thinks the painting is great, and, looking again, Clara too sees something inexplicably wonderful about it. By a narrow margin, Jane’s strange painting is accepted into the show. She decides to celebrate by inviting all of her friends to her home after the art show opening, some days hence. Naturally, they’re very excited at the prospect of finally seeing the interior of Jane’s home.

Jane will never get to give her party because, two days later, she will be found dead in the woods near her home, shot through the heart with an old-fashioned wooden arrow. Was it a hunting accident, or was Jane Neal murdered? The man charged with answering those questions is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide for the Surete du Quebec.

In most detective mysteries, the townspeople generally look upon the detective with suspicion and fear. After all, he or she is often a stranger in their midst, and they are, most likely, potential suspects. However, Gamache, like Penny’s other characters, is a delightful man, and the residents of Three Pines take to him almost immediately. And no wonder: he is a sensitive man, attuned to the vagaries of human nature, and a deeply kind and supportive person. He also is a good and patient listener and a man who is not ashamed to let his intuition guide him. All of these traits, while sometimes worrisome to his investigative team, will stand him in good stead as he looks for the serpent in the garden.

Just as Clara and her husband are near opposites in character, so too are Gamache and his second-in-command, Inspector Jean Guy Beavior. Jean Guy is an elegant young man who, while lacking Gamache’s warmth and superior understanding of the human heart, is expert in gathering facts. Jean Guy’s businesslike brusqueness makes him the perfect foil for his gentle boss. Also on the team are two rookies, Agent Robert Lemieux, who shows real promise, and Agent Yvette Nichol, who does not. Nichol is inept, tactless and seemingly incapable of learning, even from a great teacher like Gamache. Since Gamache and his team are called to Three Pines in several other books, you’ll have the pleasure of watching their characters develop as you read further.

. In addition to a cast of very interesting characters and some interesting subplots that keep our interest, “Still Life” is distinguished from other, lesser, mysteries by the fact that it actually has thematic elements. Penny refers often, for example, to figurative islands—those places of refuge or isolation to which we all sometimes escape—but for some, these islands of the mind are where we go to hide from the truth about ourselves.

“Still Life” also has just enough wisdom to make us feel we’ve been given a little gift to unwrap and think about at our leisure. We discover the double meaning of the book’s title when Myrna, the former psychologist, talks to Gamache about how much people fear change.

“I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life,” Myrna said, adding, “Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still…Most of these people are very immature. They lead ‘still lives,’ waiting…for someone to save them.”

With a little help from Gamache, the reader discovers that some of the problems people nurture in their breasts are poisonous, and it is this pernicious past that gives birth to murderers.

“Still Life” left me wishing I could move to Three Pines and enjoy the good company of its citizens. Fortunately, one of the pleasures of a good book is that you can immerse yourself in its world again and again.

Jane Julius Honchell, who resides in Glenburn Twp., is a well-known features writer and columnist. She is an associate professor at Keystone College, La Plume, where she serves as Director of Theater. "See Jane Read" appears monthly in The Abington Journal.