By Ande Jacobson

Kingdom of the Blind is the fourteenth mystery novel in Louise Penny’s Gamache series and like its predecessor picks up where the previous story left off. Armand Gamache is on suspension after a tenuous but mostly successful gambit to address the drug problem plaguing Canada (and the U.S.). Because of the actions he took, there are serious consequences in the making, but they haven’t hit just yet, so Armand is officially in limbo. He made a lot of political enemies while he was Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec. While Isabelle Lacoste is also on leave still recovering from her almost fatal injuries from the last project, Armand’s son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, is the acting head of Homicide. Superintendent Madeleine Toussaint has been promoted to acting Chief Superintendent. Despite all of that, Armand unofficially still has work to do. He’s determined to find the missing drugs that his team couldn’t recover over the course of events that ended with his suspension, and he uses some rather unorthodox methods to go about doing so. Much of his plan is only known to himself and one other person who is neither Isabelle nor Jean-Guy frustrating the two of them given their close relationships with Armand. Continue reading →