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.