The Madness of Crowds

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny, 432 pgs. 

Bodies packed into an old gym, murmuring in anticipation. Sweltering heat in the middle of an unforgiving Quebecois winter. Tensions and temperatures rising in this claustrophobic room. One shove could lead to total chaos. Violence erupted at this speaker's previous events, and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is here to make sure it does not happen again--despite his personal feelings about the speaker and the event itself. With the pandemic still fresh in the minds of everyone involved, there are many factors that make this situation feel so dangerous, but the main one is the harmful rhetoric about disabled people spewed by the speaker. Gamache knows that no matter what happens at this event, harm has already been done, as the speaker's ideas are becoming more widely discussed. The pandemic lockdown was a pressure-cooker for fear and loneliness, and while reuniting has largely been a salve, the madness of crowds could also now be society's undoing. 

This seventeenth novel in the Three Pines series is a hard read. From the very beginning of this book, I was angry. I was angry that Louise Penny would even have characters debate the repulsive ideas shared by the speaker and her followers. I was angry about the pandemic, and I was angry about the world. As I read on, though, I began to think about my anger and about what Louise Penny was actually trying to say. I worried that the very discussion and debate of the speaker's ideas could legitimize them, and that scared me, but the fact is that those ideas (sadly) are ones that already exist, and perhaps it is important to confront and dispute them before they whip up a mad crowd behind them. Themes of justice, political killings and martyrdom, mercy, and crowd mentality all bring up very real, very relevant fears relating to public health policy and societal discussion post-pandemic. While far from perfect, ultimately, I believe this is one of the best books in the series due to how much it makes you think about important ethical topics. To be clear Louise Penny, Gamache, and I are against eugenics. This one is more than just a murder mystery; it is a mirror. It is a hard read, but a good one.