By Ande Jacobson

The Madness of Crowds is the seventeenth mystery novel in Louise Penny’s Gamache series. Armand Gamache, his wife Reine-Marie, and their children, grandchildren, and Armand’s godfather, Stephen Horowitz are all back in Three Pines. Armand is hard at work as the Chief Inspector of the Homicide division at the Sûreté du Québec, and his son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, is his co-second as he readjusts to being back in the thick of things. This time, Penny tackles an extremely controversial subject coming out of the pandemic, the subject of euthanasia, but from an unexpected direction. At the end of the previous installment, Annie and Jean-Guy welcomed their second child into the world, a daughter they named Idola. Theirs was an informed choice to complete the pregnancy even though they found out early on that their child had Down Syndrome. They could have aborted the fetus, but instead chose to bring their daughter into the world, to love her, to care for her, and give her the best life they possibly could. Dark forces are amassing though, and their world is rocked by controversy. In the story, a famed statistics professor, Abigail Robinson, had recently released a report from the pandemic that suggested that resources were limited, and that it would be better for society if people who were old or infirm weren’t necessarily given life extending treatments and were instead allowed to die. More to the point, that for the good of society, she posited that they essentially had a duty to die. That of course hits very close to home for Armand and company, and especially for Jean-Guy and Annie.

The theory that Professor Robinson espouses isn’t official policy, and in fact was ignored and shelved by the government, so she sets out on her own to form a movement that is gaining momentum. Even over the Christmas/New Year’s holidays, she can and does draw a crowd that Armand, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle Lacoste find themselves in the middle of because Armand is requested to provide protection for the speaker at a nearby university. The university’s Chancellor, Colette Roberge, is a friend of his, and it turns out is instrumental in requesting him to protect Abigail at her talk. He doesn’t know, at least at first, the connection that Abigail has to Colette. Unfortunately, the crowd ends up being far bigger than expected over the holiday period, and there is an assassination attempt. Armand, even though he objects to this professor with his entire being, protects her, and she comes to no harm, but he then is thrust into the investigation to unravel not only the assassination attempt, but a few days later, there is a murder. The professor is safe, but her dear friend and confidant Debbie Schneider who accompanies the professor everywhere is the victim. The question is why? The investigation digs deep, not only into the current events, but into the past, and past secrets are uncovered that twist and turn, and there are far too many suspects and theories that must be sorted. The examination of the past is crucial to sort out competing theories of what would motivate the murder.

Another past ill by a notorious psychiatrist, Donald Ewen Cameron, who conducted unethical medical experiments on patients for the CIA is also uncovered. Penny mixes in some historical record related to the MKUltra program to the story making it all the more horrifying, and she connects the events to one of the Three Pines regulars. Through this arc, Penny examines the question of good people doing horrific things given the right circumstances. She introduces a new character, Haniya Daoud, a young woman from Sudan who survived a nightmarish situation and now works for human rights. She’s difficult, but the people of Three Pines work hard to see through her exterior to find the person inside. Haniya meets and connects with the local difficult egotist, Dr. Vincent Gilbert, who it turns out was peripherally involved in Cameron’s work when he was in medical school before becoming a world renowned humanitarian (albeit with a prickly personality). He wasn’t involved in the patient interactions, but he took care of the experimental animals and provided administrative support, i.e., billing. The connections that come about are riveting and show that good and evil can be somewhat nuanced. Both Vincent and Haniya are haunted by what they survived, and they’ve spent their lives trying to make amends for the ills that they had been forced to do.

At the core of the story though is the thesis of whether people should be duty bound to die for the good of society. There were some nasty outcomes during the pandemic where a large number of infirm were essentially sacrificed rather than given resources that could have saved at least some of them. That happened to some degree everywhere, but it brought the debate into the open. Penny doesn’t shy away from the depth of the controversy examining it from all sides. The question of being allowed to choose whether and when to die is also touched upon, but the story focuses more on whether it should be compulsory as suggested by Abigail. That of course puts a target on every elderly and disabled person within the jurisdiction should that become policy. In the story, the policy hasn’t been adopted by the government, but the danger is whether the movement supporting it could become strong enough to demand it be implemented. As presented, the debate affects Three Pines very deeply, not just because of Jean-Guy and Annie’s daughter, but also because of Ruth Zardo and Stephen Horowitz, both of whom are elderly and somewhat infirm. All would be at risk should the professor’s plan become a reality.

The pandemic opened the door to consider some wondrous things through the development of new vaccines and treatments, but it also brought a darker element to the fore. The planet does have limited resources, and many are at risk because of human intervention. As a species, we have some difficult times ahead, though some might say we’re deeply in those difficult times already depending on where we are. What is posited in the story isn’t new. It just has a new face since the pandemic, but it doesn’t change the fact that we all have a right to exist. Perhaps though, by examining the horrors of what the professor posits, we may eventually come to a more humane view of our own lives and evolve to give people control over their personal choices. Right now, several nations (or portions of nations) are evolving to give people more autonomy in the face of terminal illness, at least when they are close to death, not by making it compulsory, but by giving people control of how long they wish to suffer in their final months. Just maybe that could evolve a little further to make more of the world like Switzerland where people of sound mind don’t have be terminal to make the choice for themselves.

This story is one of the more thought-provoking ones in the series, and our Three Pines regulars examine their own motivations in ways they never have before, particularly Jean-Guy. There’s significant character growth in this one.

References:
The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny
https://www.gamacheseries.com/book/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2023/03/27/book-still-life/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2023/05/19/a-most-ungraceful-exit/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2023/06/16/book-the-cruelest-month/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2023/07/14/book-a-rule-against-murder/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/01/27/book-the-brutal-telling/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/03/07/book-bury-your-dead/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/03/24/book-a-trick-of-the-light/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/04/23/book-the-beautiful-mystery/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/05/02/book-how-the-light-gets-in/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/05/23/book-the-long-way-home/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/06/07/book-the-nature-of-the-beast/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/06/24/book-a-great-reckoning/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/07/25/book-kingdom-of-the-blind/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/09/08/book-a-better-man/
https://agoodreedreview.com/2025/09/27/book-all-the-devils-are-here/

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