Tantalizing word games in The Madness of Crowds present moral and ethical questions. Professor Abigail Robinson was invited to the village of Three Pines by Chancellor Colette Roberge to present her paper that was both logical and terrifying. Post-pandemic she was presenting a most controversial solution to the province as both merciful and reasonable. Because it was between Christmas and New Years, at a small university, in a small and seldom used auditorium, no one, including the Chancellor, expected that anyone would come. But they did. People had to be turned away on a freezing snowfilled night. Before seeing the surging crowd, Chief Inspector Gamache had no idea why he was being asked to lead this protection duty. Something that seemed unimportant. He had seen the videos on-line about previous talks the professor had given, so understood the emotion surrounding the Professor and her claims. What had seemed simple turned into a dangerous fiasco, with fireworks set off in the middle the crowd and shots fired at the Professor. What was also dangerous were the emotions that had stirred the crowd and infected the Sûreté officers under Chief Inspector Gamache.
Several nights later, at the Inn and Spa in Three Pines, most of the villagers were celebrating the coming New Year. Although uninvited, the Professor and her assistant arrived in the company of the Chancellor. Their presence created a stir off set by the presence of another: Haniya Daoud, also known as the Hero of the Sudan, was a celebrity visitor to the village. She had arrived to thank Myrna Landers, friend and neighbour in Three Pines for donating to her human rights campaign. This character seemed quite out of place in the story, but the horrors of her situation and the buried Canadian horrors paralleled each other.
It was at this party that the brutal murder of Professor Robinson’s assistant Debbie Schneider occurred. Was her murder a mistaken identity or was she targeted? Robinson and Schneider had be friends as adolescents, but had reunited in adulthood. What was in their past that had Gamache and his whole team going down many rabbit holes? And how was Dr. Vincent Gilbert, better known in Three Pines as the Asshole Saint, involved? Or was he the murderer? What ethical questions did the Sûreté officers deal with, especially Jean-Guy Beauvoir? Gamache, his father-in-law, still had visions of the nursing homes he had attended in the worst of the pandemic. Even Chancellor Roberge had her own darkness ~ could she be the murderer?
This beautiful, puzzling read has kept me captivated for this past two weeks. I’ve had to stop myself reading just to live the rest of my life. One more book for my shelf that is beginning to overflow!
”How closely the two perspectives existed, coexisted, he thought.
Side by side. The border between heaven and hell a sliver.
Murder and mercy. Kindness and cruelty.
And how very difficult it was, sometimes, to tell them apart.
Or to know on which side of the border you stood.”
~ Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds
Title: The Madness of Crowds
Author: Louise Penny
Copyright: 2021
Publisher: Three Pines, Inc.
Type: Novel
Format: Mystery Fiction
ISBN - 9781250145260 (hard cover)
ISBN - 9781250836557 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability)
ISBN - 9781250145284 (ebook)
LCCN - 2021015666
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