Every Inspector Gamache Book in Order: The Complete Louise Penny Reading Guide

The kindly Cambridge University educated Detective Inspector Armand Gamache of the Suret du Quebec makes his debut in this 2005 mystery that sees him called in to investigate the slaying of a beloved local artist in the apparently idyllic village of Three Pines in the Eastern Townships. 

He soon discovers that evil lurks even behind the neatest picket fences.

Gamache — who bears a passing resemblance to another gentle French-speaking detective, Maigret — is back in snowy Three Pines. This time he’s investigating the electrocution of a self-help guru during a festive curling match. If the victim in Still Life seemed to have no enemies, this one has way too many. 

Also published as Dead Cold, Penny’s novel won her the first of many Agatha Awards.

It’s spring in Three Pines and the new season brings fresh mysteries. A séance designed to rid the village of evil proves too scary for one participant who drops dead from fright. 

But was it really natural causes? Gamache is doubtful and events soon prove his feeling correct.

Penny grew up reading Dorothy L Sayers and other greats from the Golden Age of Detective fiction and it shows in this craftily plotted and beautifully characterised country house-style mystery. 

Gamache is staying at the ritzy Manoir Bellechasse. Any plans for a deluxe holiday soon go out of the window, however, when a fellow guest turns up dead.

The summer is coming to an end in Three Pines, but it’s still the crime season. A dead stranger is found in the village bistro and Detective Inspector Gamache and his colleagues are back on the scene uncovering more secrets and lies behind the timber walls of the villagers.

Canada is gripped by the icy cold of winter and Gamache is injured and weary. There’s no chance of our hard-pressed sleuth taking a rest, though. 

Not when, there’s a politically motivated killing in Quebec and a potential miscarriage of justice in Three Pines to investigate. Penny’s sixth mystery is a true classic and picked up multiple prizes.

A murdered women found in the garden of an acclaimed artist brings Detective Inspector Gamache back to Three Pines. It also sees the village invaded by the great and good of the art world. 

Soon our amiable sleuth finds himself enmeshed in their bitter world of envy, ambition and deceit.

The enclosed environs of a monastery makes a brilliant setting for a mystery and Penny makes predictably good use of it in Gamache’s eighth outing. When the renowned choirmaster of the strictly cloistered Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups is murdered our sleuth is called in. 

Could it be that beneath the apparently modest and religious life of the monks something monstrous is lurking? You bet!

The Province of Quebec is once again blanketed with snow. Thankfully for mystery fans bad weather does not put a stop to crime. 

The disappearance of a woman who was once one of the world’s biggest celebrities sees our man Gamache tackling the search with his usual understanding and sympathy.

A once famous artist desperate to recapture the spotlight disappears from Three Pines. In order to find him Gamache must enter the tortured world of the missing man. Soon he’ll not only be battling to rescue the artist but also to save himself.

When a young girl with a vivid imagination and a track record of telling tall tales and raising false alarms goes missing, Head of Homicide Armand Gamache takes charge. It soon becomes apparent that amidst the girl’s fantastical stories of danger there must be one that’s true.

If Gamache can work out which it is, then he can get her back safely.

An old map, a sinister stained glass window, a dead professor and an angry police cadet are cornerstones of a mystery that sees Gamache himself under suspicion as he struggles to get to the bottom of a plot that runs deeper than the St Lawrence seaway.

A mysterious stranger appears in the winter landscapes of Three Pines. His stalking presence alarms the residents. Soon there’s a dead body in the woods and Gamache is involved in a long and winding case that will drag him close to the edge of despair.

Suspended from the police, Gamache is at a loose end until he finds himself named as the executor of the bizarre will of a recently deceased resident of Three Pines. 

Has it got something to do with the corpse that’s just been discovered in the village, and can Gamache solve that mystery while also clearing his name?

Gamache is back at the Suret du Quebec, but there’s no chance of easing himself in gently. Quebec is experiencing catastrophic spring flooding and he’s under attack on social media. Soon he’s also in pursuit of a missing girl.

A long dreamed of holiday in Paris holds out the promise of romance for Gamache and his beloved wife Reine-Marie. But when his French godfather is critically injured in a hit-and-run accident that looks like attempted murder and Armand is determined to find out who did it and why.

It’s New Year's and Gamache and his family are enjoying a snowy break in Three Pines skiing, tobogganing, and drinking hot chocolate. The blissful peace is disturbed by the visit of a controversial professor to a local university. 

Soon arguments about free speech and censorship are complicated by murder.

The return to Three Pines of two young people with a troubled past worries Gamache and his assistant Jean-Guy Beauvoir. What can they want? 

Meanwhile, a 150-year-old confessional letter leads residents to a bricked up room containing curious and deadly secrets. Are the two things somehow connected?

An unwanted phone call to his holiday home in Three Pines sends Gamache and his colleagues on the track of something so malevolent it threatens to destroy everything they hold dear. 

A political thriller filled with classic mystery ingredients — missing coats, strange lists, anonymous letters — The Grey Wolf builds to a breath-taking climax.

The superb sequel to The Grey Wolf finds Gamache and his team still struggling to roll up the terror gang. Their one clue is a mysterious map of Quebec and a cryptic warning about water and life. 

An anonymous phone tip sets Gamache, Beauvoir and the rest of the squad on the trail of a killer who struck a century earlier. Odder yet, it soon becomes clear the tip off came from one of Armand’s neighbours in Three Pines. 

The lastest in Penny’s series shows that, in her seventies, she is still at the top of her game.