It has been nearly two years since readers were last able to visit Armand Gamache and the residents of Three Pines via a new book from Louise Penny. That alone makes the publication of The Grey Wolf a significant literary highlight of 2024, but considering that this entry in the beloved series is one of the best yet, it is sure to send fans over the moon and into the stratosphere.
Leave it to Louise Penny to captivate readers with a global crisis of unimaginable magnitude while also recounting incredibly intimate struggles for forgiveness, fidelity, trust, and hope. The Grey Wolf, both the spiritual concept and the book itself, elucidates that dichotomous part within each of us—the eternal battle to be just and fair in a world on the brink of hypocrisy and greed.
The Grey Wolf begins with Armand Gamache ignoring a phone call. His wife can tell he knows who is calling, but she has no idea why he would refuse to answer. Boiling with rage—an uncommon state for the Chief Inspector—the sanctity of Three Pines has once again been violated. A series of odd occurrences and minor anomalies follow, leading readers straight into a plot that will surely result in a few nights of lost sleep.
Louise Penny has always been willing to take huge risks within the Three Pines series. Each book has its own structure, style, and tone. The Grey Wolf harkens back to the thriller aspects readers found in The Nature of the Beast. And for the first time, the scope of the crime will require Armand Gamache and his team—namely Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste—to divide and conquer, with each heading to a different far-flung location to gather vital information that will help to make it all make sense.
Louise Penny toys with her reader in the best possible way. Anyone expecting to know who was on the other end of that ignored telephone call will have quite a significant wait for their own answer(s). And in fact, Penny keeps readers in the dark about so many minor developments in The Grey Wolf plot that it can at times become frustrating—but it’s all for a good cause. When the reveals finally do arrive, one after another, the already gripping novel becomes almost unbearably suspenseful, all without ever losing the intellectual and emotional layers Louise Penny is famous for.
Not coincidentally, the full meaning of the novel’s title is exposed almost exactly at the dead center of the book. Where that occurs is just as important as what it means for the plot of The Grey Wolf. Once again, Louise Penny is using these small-scale ambiguities and the larger crime plot to convey something significant about life’s larger overarching “mystery”—why do we exist? With a plot that reflects the turmoil we see around the world in politics, citizenry, and division, The Grey Wolf manages to entertain as it also enlightens.
In a wise move, Louise Penny allows the beloved Three Pines residents to act as something of a balm for the reader, providing brief moments that soothe and rejuvenate in amongst the hard-hitting Global crime plot at the core of The Grey Wolf. In a series of unforgettable novels, The Grey Wolf stakes its claim as one of the most impactful—imprinting on the reader’s mind a litany of indelible images never to be forgotten.
Louise Penny will hit a significant milestone with the next Three Pines Mystery—book number twenty in this now iconic crime fiction series. Following The Grey Wolf would be challenging for any writer, but Louise Penny has proven herself more than capable repeatedly and I suspect all the fans—myself included—will be clamoring to get our hands on that significant entry in a series that we hope never ends.
BUY LINKS: The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
Disclaimer: A print galley of this title was provided to BOLO Books by the publisher. No promotion was promised and the above is an unbiased review of the novel.
