A few years ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache stood on the shore by Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups and watched his best friend ride away from him, possibly forever. The Abbot of the monastery then told him the story of the place's name--the story of the grey wolf, representing the good inside all of us, and the black wolf, representing the darkness. The Abbot left Gamache with the message that the wolf that wins within us is the one that we feed.
Now, although Gamache has done his best to feed his grey wolf, to do good in his position in the Surete, there are those who have fed their own black wolves. After a series of peculiar events culminate in the death of a suspect, Gamache must figure out who he can trust as he solves the mystery of a case which seems to be much bigger than originally expected.
The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny's nineteenth novel in the Three Pines series, includes one of her most ambitious plots yet. It is so big that it spans into the next one, The Black Wolf. Some of this big plot works well and creates for very exciting moments. For example, the final showdown is very interesting. Other aspects, however, feel a bit drawn out. At times, Penny relies too heavily on explicitly written phrases to manufacture tension, rather than letting the story do that on its own. Throughout the novel, chapters end in phrases like, "As it turned out, Chief Inspector Gamache was wrong. Very wrong." (213), but the payoff for those statements often does not come until the end of the book (or it comes and turns out to be not-so-shocking), so readers learn not to trust these mini-cliffhangers. For readers who have already come to know and love these characters, it is always a pleasure to follow Gamache as he untangles a messy mystery, but for those who are new to the series, there are better books with which to begin.
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