Louise Penny

Louise Penny is the widely acclaimed author of the Chief Inspector Gamache novels set in her home province of Québec, Canada. Her books have sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, topped American, Canadian and international bestseller lists, and been translated into 32 languages.

Penny’s most recent book is The Grey Wolf. This #1 New York Times bestseller, the 19th mystery in the Inspector Gamache series, follows the investigations of the head of the homicide department of the Sûreté du Québec. In its starred review, Library Journal stated “Penny’s follow-up to A World of Curiosities plays on readers’ fears as she launches a new story arc that is completed in this installment but presents a cliffhanger. It’s a frightening novel of duality, of good versus evil, with an allegorical tale for today’s world, as only Penny can write.”

The Toronto Globe and Mail added, “Penny is a daring author. Rather than settling into a comfortable routine, she gives us her most ambitious novel yet… the last hundred pages move like lightning and the implication is there are more books to come. Clearly, Penny isn’t about to rest on her considerable laurels.”

The New York Times called Penny’s novels “more intricately wrought tone poems than procedurals.” As a writer, Penny may be more interested in the why in her mysteries than the whodunit or how. Most of the stories in the Inspector Gamache series are set in the fictional village of Three Pines: The Beautiful Mystery, winner of the Anthony Award in 2013, is set in a remote monastery in Quebec, and All the Devils Are Here, which is set in Paris, won the 2020 Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel.

As Publishers Weekly stated, “Few writers in any genre can match Penny's ability to combine heartbreak and hope in the same scene.” Her earlier works include How the Light Gets In, which was nominated for the Edgar Award for best novel, and The Hangman – a novella in the Inspector Gamache series written at a third-grade level for emerging adult readers.

Penny burst onto the scene in 2005 with Still Life, the first in the series featuring Gamache. The novel won the Crime Writers Association (CWA) “New Blood” Dagger award in the United Kingdom, the Arthur Ellis Award in Canada for best first crime novel, the Dilys Award, the Anthony Award, and the Barry Award for Best First Novel in the United States.

Still Life: A Three Pines Mystery, with British actor Nathaniel Parker as Chief Inspector Gamache, aired on CBC TV in 2013 and is available to stream online. In 2022, Three Pines – starring Alfred Molina as Gamache, aired on Prime. It debuted in the top 10 internationally, reaching #1 in Canada and the U.K., and #2 in the U.S. Penny has been honored numerous times for her writing. She has won the Agatha Award (seven times), Anthony Award (five times), and Arthur Ellis Award (twice), as well as the Macavity, Nero, and Lefty awards.

State of Terror, written with Hillary Rodham Clinton, was named one of the most anticipated novels of 2021 by the Los Angeles Times and St. Louis Post Dispatch, as well as People, Time, Parade, Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, and others. It debuted at the top of the New York Times, USA Today, and Toronto Globe and Mail bestseller lists. The Wall Street Journal called it “a stunning and exhilarating book.”

Penny’s first career was as a radio host and journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). She is the recipient of both the Order of Canada and l’Ordre national du Québec, her country’s highest civilian honors. Her husband Michael Whitehead, the former Head of Hematology at the Montreal Children's Hospital, died of dementia in 2016. Her Three Pines Foundation reaches out to those in crisis and offers financial and emotional support, with a special focus on literacy as well as dementia care. Penny lives with her beloved Golden Retrievers in a village south of Montréal.

Few writers draw such a following, with devoted readers making pilgrimages to Quebec’s Eastern Townships (the real settings for Three Pines) to walk in the footsteps of Gamache and Penny’s bestselling novels.

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