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Minotaur Books

The Madness of Crowds: A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, 17)

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Instant 1 New York Times Bestseller AARP The Magazine – Recommended Summer Reading CNN – A Most Anticipated Book of August Bustle – A Most Anticipated Book of August Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns to Three Pines in 1 New York Times bestseller Louise Penny's latest spellbinding novel You’re a coward. Time and again, as the New Year approaches, that charge is leveled against Armand Gamache. It starts innocently enough. While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request. He’s asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university. While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture. They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Before long, Professor Robinson’s views start seeping into conversations. Spreading and infecting. So that truth and fact, reality and delusion are so confused it’s near impossible to tell them apart. Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold. Abigail Robinson promises that, if they follow her, ça va bien aller. All will be well. But not, Gamache and his team know, for everyone. When a murder is committed it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion. And the madness of crowds. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Minotaur Books


Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 24, 2021


Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 448 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250145260


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 60


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.44 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.6 x 1.4 x 9.6 inches


Book 17 of 21 ‏ : ‎ Chief Inspector Gamache Mysteries


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Brilliant, Thoughtful, Literary Mystery
The problem with reading a Louise Penny book is that they are so good! So good that everything else that you read within a close time frame will seem thin and pale in comparison. Her characters are complicated and three-dimensional. You cannot read one of her books without gaining more insight into human nature at its best, its worst, and everything in between. Her plots are complex and filled with thoughtful discussions of important contemporary issues. This book is no exception. The reader is never bogged down in superfluous information, nor will the reader feel a preachy or condescending tone. Her books value morality and goodness at their core, but they are never, ever remotely sappy. Few authors can manage even part of these tasks and Louise Penny has master them all. Most of the story is set in the fictional small town of Three Pines and its surroundings. No surprise, the setting in her books is also always rich and detailed. Being in Three Pines means that many of the continuing characters appear and that is a plus. There are issues dealing with the pandemic, free speech, euthanasia, eugenics, and heroics in the face of terrible abuse. The issues are serious, and they are dealt with in a thoughtful manner, but the book is never ponderous or depressing. This series is one that should be read in order so that you can better know the characters. There will be no summary of the story here, because Louise Penny can tell her story much better than I can. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2022 by Constant Reader
    • Oh my!
So very touching and heart rendering, so much to enjoy and understand but so worth the trip to Three Pines. I cannot love this series or these people anymore than I do, but somehow I manage.
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2024 by Melanie Mccartt
    • A good story, but it might have needed a simpler plot line
A new Inspector Armand Gamache mystery novel by Louise Penny is an event. Each story generally goes right to the top of the bestsellers’ lists, and with good reason. Gamache, his Quebec Surete colleagues, and his neighbors in the village of three Pines have legions of fans worldwide. And his fans have followed Gamache through thick and thin, from Montreal to Paris, from his unmasking political skullduggery at the highest levels of Canadian provincial government to his nearly dying. We love Gamache and how he solves mysteries. We love his colleagues Isabel Lacoste and Jean-guy Beauvoir, who also happens to be his son-in-law. We love Gamache’s wife, Reine-Narie. And the Three Pines neighbors: bistro owners Olivier and Gabri, poet Ruth Zardo and her foul-mouthed duck Rosa, artist Clare Morrow, and bookstore operator Myrna. “The Madness of Crowds” is the seventeenth Gamache novel, and it helps to know two things about the book. It was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was written before the emergence of the delta variant of COVID. It is set just after the pandemic has ended, with the widespread availability of vaccines. The people are Three Pines are coming together for a Christmas and New Year’s celebration, the first such celebration post-pandemic. Joining the celebration is a Sudanese woman nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, one who endured mass rape, torture, and disfigurement to go on to create a foundation for women and children. She is a worldwide celebrity, and the residents of Three Pines are initially thrilled. Until they get to know her, and discover that sainthood often involves a brutal, caustic personality. Gamache is called to a local university, to provide security for a speaker with unpopular views, in this case, the articulation of support for eugenics and the “culling” of the population, particularly during events like pandemics. Inspired by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, eugenics was especially popular in the late nineteenth and first-half of the twentieth centuries. In the United States, it was associated with Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. In Europe, it was associated with Nazi theories of racial superiority, and it was the Holocaust that dealt what many thought was a death blow to eugenics. Biotechnology, however, has brought it back, although in a different form and using different names. It is a woman professor from British Columbia whom Gamache must protect, even as he finds what she says and believes to be abhorrent. Contributing to this abhorrence is that fact that Gamache’s baby granddaughter Idola, the child of Jean-Guy and Gamache’s daughter Annie, has Down’s Syndrome. Penny swirls all these currents and crosscurrents together, in the way only she can, to tell a fascinating story. Except something seems slightly off-kilter in The Madness of Crowds, and it’s not easy to say specifically what it is. It may be the disconnect of writing about a pandemic that has supposedly just passed, when the reader’s current reality is that COVID-19 is still very much with us. It may be that it takes several chapters before the reader knows what, exactly, are the controversial views the characters find to be so hateful. It may be that the murder, when it does finally occur well into the story, is connected to human experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. Using these experiments, the question of eugenics, and Sudanese atrocities as narrative devices in the novel runs the risk of a story without a center, and the book comes close to that. There’s also a sense that the author did not deal well with what happened during the first year of COVID-19, and it surfaces several times in the experiences of her characters. It is Gamache’s wife who tell us what happened to her husband and son-in-law during the lockdown; Gamache and Jean-Guy make little reference to it. I love the Gamache stories. I’ve been amazed with the first 16 books and how Penny consistently wrote on exceptional mystery novel after another. “The Madness of Crowds” is a good story, but it might have needed a simpler plot line; the story of the Sudanese woman, for example, could have been a separate Gamache story all to itself. But we remain faithful to the inspector, his colleagues, his family, and his friends. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2021 by Glynn Young
    • One of the Best Writers in the Business. Another 100 STAR BOOK.
She is simply one of the very best. This book meets or exceeds everything she has written before. Her books are erudite, supple, meaningful, measured and weighty. To read Louise Penny is to be forever changed. It feels like she does all the work for you. She ponders and and thinks and shares what so many of us could not put into words to explain our feelings and motivations. This book sums up what is happening in a way we can all 'get it" and gives us a template to make even a small contribution to the greater good. She makes tremendous contributions with her books. l LOVE her writing. Her skill. her empathy. her Love. Her sensitivity. Her grit. Her resolve. Her fertile imagination. Her dedication. Her Clarity. I will read everything this author ever writes! I saw her at a venue in Naperville, IL a couple of years ago and on her website in an interview with an old friend. MS Penny is someone I would love to know. Personable, accessible, candid, . she shares herself with others and changes the conversation so easily to enlighten us about herself and her experiences. So refreshing. Her books reflect her way of talking and sharing. I cannot recommend these nearly enough. Everyone should read these lovely and tough novels. She and her writing really make a difference. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2021 by pollymom
    • Louise Penny never fails to move me and make me think harder
And she throws in a wonderful murder mystery and terrific characters to move you and help one think through the thorny issues we must actually think about. I started with the book before this one. I then read them all in order to I just can’t wait til I’m old enough to forget them so I can do it all over again. I’m not sure all will be well but I’m sure that I cannot live without the hope for that. Thank you. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2024 by PJ from Sarasota
    • well written mystery
I’ve enjoyed reading Louise Penny over the years. Was not happy to see her co-write with Clinton. Didn’t read her for awhile but decided to give this one a try. Mystery kept me guessing up to end which I felt was dragged out too long. Still great characters and lovely little village life. Wish she kept her liberal point of view out though. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2024 by Glenn Walker

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