Louise Penny's "The Madness of Crowds": A Gripping Tale of Intrigue and Suspense

Nature Lover2: As always Ms. Penney manages to capture the reader with a diversity of characters interwoven with the post-pandemic impacts on society and at the same time, returning us to our beloved characters of Three Pines. Another well researched and captivating story.

United States on Nov 22, 2023

Sue Phillips: So now after seventeen novels there is just the last one to go! I am so fond of all the characters who I now feel I know so well .The great skill, apart from skilful storytelling that gives a sense that you are in the room with the characters , is the plot . Themes that reflect important issues of the day , moral questions run throughout about how to deal with them in a way that does not compromise the values of our heroes . We are constantly asking ourselves what would we do as we wonder right up to the end , who is guilty ?

United Kingdom on Nov 11, 2023

Margarita Miranda: Interesting subject, strong, complex characters but painfully slow moving at times.

The last chapter seemed particularly slow. Evocative of Agatha Christie's inspector Poirot.

United States on Oct 30, 2023

#EmptyNestReader: “Oh, you’d be surprised how clearly the heart can see. What I do know is that how we feel drives what we think, and that determines what we do. Our actions leave behind evidence, those facts you mention. But it all starts with an emotion.”

It is just months after the isolations and quarantines caused by the Covid pandemic have been lifted, thanks to the successful development of a vaccine and world-wide inoculations. It’s Christmas week and Chief Inspector Gamache is called upon to provide security for a gathering at a university near Three Pines. A lecture is being given by a Professor of Statistics, Abigail Robinson. Gamache and his deputies, Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste, have trouble imaging a talk on statistics, and doubt there'll be a full house, but when he researches the speaker, he is so disgusted by her topic that he urges the University to cancel the talk. Accused of not supporting free speech, the lecture will go on.

They are surprised to find the auditorium filling up with an atmosphere that was tense, stifling, overheated and angry with people of divided loyalties. Many people wearing the same button "Ca va bien aller. All will be...

United States on Oct 15, 2023

Alksped: I teach special education, so the introduction of Idola, in Penny’s last book has been interesting; making the Madness of Crowds with the suggestion of “mercy killings” horrifying. Add in COVID and that in the US, with Jan 6th, we’ve just witnessed the power of someone manipulating statistics to create the results he wanted to see and being able to “stir a crowd” into a frenzy and something that would have seemed impossible to me 10 years ago, sounds incredibly realistic today. I guessed the killer from the beginning, but there were enough twists and turns throughout to keep me questioning my judgement. I loved this book and would recommend to anyone who loves to curl up with a good mystery and read into the night.

United States on Sep 26, 2023

Denise Foster: great read, gets you into wanting more

Australia on Aug 28, 2023

KristiM: As books on kindle get more expensive I prioritise my purchases but anything by Louise Penny is always a must. All her characters are so well developed that they are like old friends. I especially love the wisdom of Gamache, who along with Donna Leon’s Brunetti are my favourite detectives.

Australia on Jul 23, 2023

Annette S.Annette S.: Dommage que la qualité de l'article (du livre) lui-même n'est pas top. Il est arrivé un peu abîmé. Rien de dramatique, mais quand c'est un cadeau ce n'est pas terrible.

France on Jul 09, 2023

Carolyn: 4.5 stars
Whenever a new book by Louise Penny is published, it immediately goes to the top of my reading list. Set in the idyllic, charming village of Three Pines, Quebec, Penny has designed a place where I want to live. I want to get to know the people in this community and to eat in the Bistro. Her characters are so well developed that they seem real, and with each book, we get to know them better; their kindness, their foibles and quirks, their place in the village, and their relationships with neighbors and friends.

In many ways, this is the best and most powerful book in the series. It is deep, dark, and provocative.
There are moral dilemmas and ethical discussions and much food for thought. There is a murder, of course, amongst the sparkling winter landscape, hot chocolate, and outdoor activities with the children playing in the snow.

After a long time following COVID restrictions, the villagers have come out of isolation, delighted that the vaccine has ended the pandemic. They are now free to congregate, hug, discard masks, and resume a normal life, but the pandemic has left them with grief and lingering sadness. This post-COVID setting is a little too...

Canada on Sep 16, 2021

Glynn Young: 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...

United States on Sep 06, 2021