The Madness of Crowds

What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.

What this book is about

In the aftermath of a pandemic, Three Pines prepares for a lecture by the controversial Abigail Robinson — a statistician who has become famous, and infamous, for arguing that society should embrace the death of its weakest members as a form of renewal. Before the lecture ends, someone is murdered, and the investigation forces Gamache into questions about whether ideas themselves can be a cause of violence. The seventeenth Inspector Gamache novel is Louise Penny's meditation on how societies go mad — the psychology of crowds, the danger of certainty, and what happens when intellectual extremism becomes something personal.