Sleuth work: The Wisdom of Gamache in Still Life: Identify phrases in this book that embrace Gamache’s approach to life. ONLY comment with the phrase! Discussion of the selected phrase will take place next week after Louise reveals her phrase.

Identify a phrase or scene that embraces the spirit of Three Pines in Still Life. What does the phrase mean to you? How does it inspire you?

Tell us about your favourite phrase or scene that demonstrates Louise’s humour in Still Life.

Identify a phrase or scene that demonstrates an insight into human nature in Still Life. Discuss the quote or scene and what it means to you or how it has impacted you.

In Still Life, did you pick up on any historical or geographical details of interest? Tell us about it and what you appreciated learning about in Still Life.

Tell us about your favourite food moment in Still Life! Has the food in this book inspired you to try a new dish or bake/cook something new?

“They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.” Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. “I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.” Discuss this phrase that Louise has chosen. What does this phrase mean to you? How does it inspire you?

Why is that odd for a homicide detective, and how does it influence his work? What are his strengths and his weaknesses?

There are three main couples in the book: Clara and Peter, Olivier and Gabri, and Gamache and Reine-Marie.

The village of Three Pines is not on any map, and when Gamache and Agent Nicole first arrive there, they see “the inevitable paradox. An old stone mill sat beside a pond, the mid morning sun warming its fieldstones. Around it the maples and birches and wild cherry trees held their fragile leaves, like thousands of happy hands waving to them on arrival. And police cars. The snakes in Eden.”

Consider Gamache’s advice to Nichol: “Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful.” Similarly, Myrna stopped practicing psychology because she lost patience with people who lead “still” lives, “waiting for someone to save them….The fault lies with us, and only us. It’s not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it’s definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it’s us and our choices.”

When the charred arrowhead is found in his home, it is said that Matthew Croft “had finally been hurt beyond poetry.” How does poetry help him and other characters in this novel? Does it ever have the power to hurt? What do you think of Timmer Hadley’s idea that “there’s something about Ruth Zardo, something bitter, that resents happiness in others, and needs to ruin it. That’s probably what makes her a great poet, she knows what it is to suffer.”

There’s a huge clue to the murder early in the book, when Jane gives Ben a meaningful look and then quotes from W. H. Auden: “Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.”

Clara has “very specific tastes” in murder mysteries: “Most of them were British and all were of the village cozy variety.”

Gamache says “I’ve never met anyone uniformly kind and good,” yet no one has anything bad to say about Jane—except regarding her art.

Answer posted questions or pose your own questions for the group to answer