This Time, Louise Penny Thinks She Got It Right

“Crime was deeply human, Gamache knew. The cause and the effect. And the only way he knew to catch a criminal was to connect with the human beings involved,” wrote Louise Penny in her 2005 book, Still Life. It was the first time—after he spent several years existing only in Penny’s imagination—that readers finally met Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec (that is, the French Canadian Police). Seventeen years and a series of 18 books later, the equally gentle and gruff Chief Inspector Gamache has earned impressive cred with mystery lovers, even beating out Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot in last year’s Washington Post ranking of the most beloved fictional detectives.

But nobody loves the character more than Penny herself, as Chief Inspector Gamache is based on her late husband. No wonder, then, that she wasn’t quick or keen to give up (some) creative control of the character to Left Bank, producer of The Crown. After all, she’d signed off on a TV Gamache once before, an experience that left her vowing she’d never ever do so again. On the eve of the debut of Three Pines, Amazon Prime’s new series based on Penny’s books, starring Alfred Molina in the lead role, Vanity Fair talks to the best-selling author about Gamache’s bumpy road to television, how and why she changed her mind and tried again, whether American viewers will tune in to the (very!) Canadian show, and why a small town is just as interesting a place to solve a murder as a city.

Vanity Fair: Congrats on the show! I watched the first two episodes last night but resisted binge-watching them all because I didn’t want to know the ending before we chatted.

Louise Penny: That’s wonderful. It’s exciting, it’s thrilling, it’s unexpected.

Really? Isn’t this the second time Gamache landed on the screen?

It is, and he did, and thank you for bringing that up! It wasn’t my favorite experience, to be honest, and not because of the actors or any one thing in particular, it just wasn’t, I felt, a true reflection of the spirit of the books. Afterwards, every time anybody asked [to make a show], I said no. A hard no. I don’t have much to gain but lots to lose. My characters are very important to me and every decision I made was personal.

Why did you finally change your mind?

Well, it took a long time. I met with Andy Harries, the head of Left Bank, for about two years. I wanted to see how many free lunches I could get. We just talked and talked and talked, because it’s really about trust. It’s like jumping off a cliff, so I needed as many assurances as possible. I spoke to my writer friends, Anne Cleeves and Diana Gabaldon, both who’ve had their books adapted. Finally, my agent said, “Accept or don’t, but if you’re ever going to accept, do you think you’ll ever find a better fit than Left Bank?” I pondered and decided, just because the quality of their work, not just The Crown, but wow, The Crown.

I just watched the Tampongate episode. I mean, if they can make that good…

Oh, that’s next on my list! They do such great work, though I did make it clear to Andy, even though I didn’t have to because he already knew, that the show had to be set in Canada. These are Canadian books set in Canada, not in Kent or Vermont. He said absolutely.

As a Canadian, it’s so nice to see Canada being itself, in French, with curling. Do you think American viewers will go for it?

I know they will, and let me tell you why. It took me years to find an agent and a publisher, and part of the problem, [which] I heard over and over again, was that no one would be interested in a crime novel set in Canada. I knew that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t marshal arguments. Americans are very open to my books, which frankly sell better in the United States than anywhere else, including Canada. People like good stories wherever they are.

How much if any say did you get in casting? Did you get to pick who played Gamache?

We talked about that for a long, long time. Television often cheats, they go for someone younger or some Hollywood pretty boy. Gamache has so much more happening, so we needed someone with the gravitas to be funny, warm, vulnerable, strong, kind—all at the same time. It was Andy Hallies who called me up and said, “Alfred Molina.” Everything changed right then. I said we have to get him.

He must be brave to step into a role that the world loves so much, but that’s so important to you especially because he’s based on your husband.

At some point after all that, I knew I had to let my Gamache go and let Alfred have him. I visited the set, briefly. He called me “Mrs. Penny.”