The Madness of Crowds: A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Book 17) By Louise Penny (paperback) Fiction Novel

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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.