It’s finally happened: A Louise Penny book that I did not immediately give five stars to, although after reading the whole book, I found that I liked it more than my initial impression. I’m going to try and avoid big spoilers but given how vague the summary is, I’m not sure if it’s possible. So… maybe skip this if you want to read it but don’t want to be spoiled about anything?

The seventeenth novel in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, The Madness of Crowds takes place right after the pandemic when a dangerous idea is spreading. Professor Abigail Robinson, a professor of statistics who has been making waves online, is going to give a talk and Gamache is asked to provide security. At first, it seems hard to see why a statistics lecture will need security, especially since her tagline is ça va bien aller or all will be well but as Gamache digs deeper, he discovers that she is arguing for something he finds utterly repulsive.

At first, I didn’t know if I would like the book because it seemed so clumsy. I caught on to what Abigail was arguing for earlier on and thought it was horrific and didn’t know what it was “controversial” in the “half the people support her” way. In fact, I thought it was a bad argument to make and a clumsy attempt at message fiction about the limits of free speech. But then Myra talked about MAiD (Medically assisted deaths) and it made sense why Penny picked this issue – it can be argued as the logical extension to MAiD. However, the argument for Abigail’s case is never fully fleshed out, especially in relation to how it’s an extension (or not) of current policies, so if I hadn’t caught that reference, I would be wondering why people would even support Abigail.

There is also the small plot problem of how, after being told that Abigail’s ideas are morally repugnant but based on sound statistics over and over again at the start, it is suddenly suggested that her statistics may, in fact, be just a spurious connection (based on the number of times the idea is brought up). I think one thing that works against this whole plot is that Abigail’s argument is never explained in detail, especially by a character familiar with the issue. We almost got that, with Myra, but Penny did not take the chance. Instead, we are left with the suggestion that most of Abigail’s appeal is in her personality, suggesting that half of the population is just stupid/prone to being influenced. Given that Penny clearly tried to go for more nuance about this topic about free speech and ideas that divide society, it’s a pity we ended with something so flat and one-dimensional.

The other reason why I wasn’t a fan of the book is the introduction of Haniya, the Hero of Sudan who is actually a really grouchy and frankly, very rude person. She seems to have been introduced just for this book and unlike the controversial free speech argument, I did not manage to see more nuance/reasons for why she was here. We already have Ruth to be the grouchy rude old woman and I didn’t really think that Haniya added any thing more to the plot.

What really saved the book was the plot and most of the characters. The core of the book is about love and how love can be expressed or twisted and that gave it enough heart to keep moving forward. I actually found the murder mystery part to be very interesting and I kept reading because I wanted to find out who the murderer was and why the murder took place.

So essentially, I read on despite initial misgivings (mostly because I remember loving all of Penny’s books up to now) and the book eventually got much better, and I could not put the book down towards the end because I really wanted to find out what happened. But as you can probably tell, I am not a fan of the premise of the book, which felt like very obvious message fiction and I didn’t even like all the new characters. It’s definitely a mixed bag for me, but I think I will still read the next book in the series at some point.

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