The madness of crowds [large print]

Title:

Three Pines mystery ;

Author:

Penny, Louise, author.

Publication Information:

Waterville, ME : Large Print Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2022.

Edition:

Large print edition.

Format:

Large print

Physical Description:

665 pages (large print) ; 23 cm

Series:

Three Pines mystery ; 17.

Summary:

"Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is asked to provide security for a visiting Professor of Statistics at the nearby university. It sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture. They refuse and accuse Gamache of censorship. Before long, Professor Abigail Robinson's views start seeping into conversation. Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold. When a murder is committed it falls to Gamache and his team to investigate"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

Missing persons -- Fiction.

Gamache, Armand (Fictitious character) -- Fiction.

Police -- Québec (Province) -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Fathers and daughters -- Fiction.

Large type books.

Geographic Term:

Québec (Province) -- Fiction.

Genre:

Large print books.

Detective and mystery fiction.

ISBN:

9781432899066

Document ID:

SD_ILS:5023675

Availability:

Library	Call Number	Format	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Hingham Public Library	MYS PEN	28 DAY BOOK	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable
Searching... Kingston Public Library	PEN GAM #17	BOOK	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns to Three Pines in #1 New York Times bestseller Louise Penny's latest spellbinding novel, The Madness of Crowds .

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.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Might a post-Covid Canada value individual lives less? That provocative question's at the heart of bestseller Penny's brilliant 17th whodunit featuring Sûreté du Québec Chief Insp. Armand Gamache (after 2020's All the Devils Are Here). Gamache, who has been devastated to learn that nursing homes were abandoned during the pandemic, leaving the vulnerable residents to die alone, is discomfited to be asked to provide security for a lecture by a controversial figure, statistician Abigail Robinson. After analyzing the pandemic's social and economic fallout for the Canadian government, Robinson concluded that the health care system and the economy would be in good shape, if only the elderly and infirm were euthanized so everyone else could have adequate resources. The government disclaimed her findings, but her views have proven disturbingly popular among a segment of the population. Gamache saves Robinson from an assassin's bullet at the talk, but a related murder in his home village of Three Pines follows. Seamlessly integrating debates about scientific experimentation and morality into a fair-play puzzle, Penny excels at placing her characters in challenging ethical quandaries. This author just goes from strength to strength. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Company. (Aug.)

Booklist Review

Planning her seventeenth Armand Gamache novel, Penny realized that she couldn't ignore the pandemic, but how to write about it without rehashing the all-too-familiar horrors? Her solution was to set the story after the virus had been contained in Canada, but, as she explains in an afterword, "the bruising remained." It begins when Chief Inspector Gamache is ordered to provide security for a lecture by controversial statistics professor Abigail Robinson, who argues that further pandemics can be eliminated by a program of mandatory euthanasia targeting at-risk groups, including the elderly and the disabled. The Canadian government rejects the idea, but as Robinson speaks around the country, she begins to gain public support (along with violent opponents). When an attempt on the professor's life at the lecture Gamache is working causes a near-riot, and, later, in the wake of a related murder, Gamache realizes that "the madness of crowds" could be the most dangerous side effect of the pandemic. Always a master plotter, Penny brilliantly combines this main story line with a profusion of subplots that bring together multiple interconnected themes, all raising thought-provoking questions about ethics and human relationships in a post-COVID world. Gamache's longtime belief in our common humanity is severely tested here, but, finally, it is that belief and the actions deriving from it that seem to offer the only balm for our lingering bruises. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Millions of readers will find that picking up a new Gamache novel is the perfect way to celebrate the easing of a pandemic.

Library Journal Review

When Armand Gamache is asked to provide security for a local university event, he's baffled. Why would a lecture by a visiting statistician--in English, no less--need additional security? Then he looks into what Abigail Robinson will be discussing and discovers the dangerous, repugnant theories she espouses. And when someone shoots at her during the lecture and a friend of hers is murdered soon after, Gamache investigates, along with his second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Penny sets her latest series installment (following All the Devils Are Here) after the COVID pandemic, asking hard questions about the duty of care society owes its most vulnerable members. A seemingly random subplot--Reine-Marie Gamache taking on the task of sorting through the papers of a recently deceased elderly woman and trying to figure out why the woman compulsively drew monkeys--ends up providing an important connection. Robert Bathurst continues to provide exceptional narration, with strong characterizations for main and secondary characters alike, including vocalizations for poet Ruth Zardo's pet duck. VERDICT An essential purchase for libraries.--Stephanie Klose, Library Journal

Quincy Thomas Crane Library

Availability:

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review