Jane, on the morning before she died yelled at them to stop. The youth had been part of a group throwing manure from a flower bed at Olivier and Gabri, mocking them for being gay.

At first the investigation appears to indicate a hunting accident, perhaps from a hunter from away who thought he had spotted a deer. And so Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team discover Three Pines. She died of an arrow through the heart, an arrow removed. The next morning Jane was found dead in the forest by Ben Hadley. When Jane learns the painting was accepted, she invited all her friends to a party the night of the show opening, at her house–Olivier and Gabri, the gay couple who owned the Bistro, Myrna, the bookstore owner, Ruth Zardo, the brilliant and curmudgeonly poet, Clara and Peter, an artist couple, and Ben Hadley, a bachelor artist whose mother Timmer had recently died after a battle with cancer. At first the jurors thought it was a child’s drawing, but then felt there was a peculiar power to this piece. That is, until she entered a piece into the local Arts Williamsburg show–a painting called Fair Day. Yet no one had been allowed beyond her kitchen or saw her work. Jane Neal was an elderly retired teacher, seemingly beloved by everyone in the secluded town of Three Pines, near the Quebec/US border. Summary: The suspicious death of Jane Neal a day after her painting is accepted into an art show brings Gamache and his team to Three Pines, and to the grim conclusion that someone in this small community is a murderer.

Still Life (Chief Inspector Gamache #1), Louise Penny.

Still life book louise penny