Criminal Intents

If Montreal has Michel Tremblay as its chief chronicler and southern Ontario is the scene of a turf war between Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro, the most famous writer from Quebec’s Eastern Townships is undoubtedly Louise Penny. Her Chief Inspector Gamache series is on its twenty-first instalment, as people in the fictional town of Three Pines just keep being murdered. Penny tops bestseller lists even when she’s not co-writing with Hillary Clinton, and she’s won nine Agathas, the top prize for thrillers. Yet for all her accomplishments, her books are easier to find in shopping malls than on syllabuses. The division between “genre” and “literary” fiction keeps her out of the prestige market.

Are such categorizations justified or simple snobbery? The question seems particularly relevant as two of Quebec’s traditionally literary writers release novels that flirt with popular forms. Daniel Grenier’s Pour un paquet de Player’s (For a pack of Player’s) is a quick...