Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.
That’s only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin THE GREY WOLF, the nineteenth novel in Louise Penny’s #1 New York Times-bestselling series. A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading “this might interest you”, a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list–and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching.
Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command, and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. Their hunt grows increasingly desperate, even frantic, as the enormity of the creature they’re chasing becomes clear. If they fail the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages.
Including Three Pines.
"Fresh and surprising… It’s a solemn treatise on power, greed, trust, devotion and the vulnerabilities of the world’s infrastructure. It will leave you shaken. Ever since ‘Still Life,’ the first Gamache novel, was published in 2005 in Canada, after being rejected by dozens of publishers, critics and fans have crowned each subsequent novel the most haunting, the darkest and the edgiest. ‘The Grey Wolf’ is all those things and more."
"...Penny is a daring author. Rather than settling into a comfortable routine, she gives us her most ambitious novel yet with a complex, world-threatening plot and thrilling chases right down to a cliffhanger ending."
“Following 2022’s ‘A World of Curiosities,’ Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his intrepid band of investigators are back in a thriller that starts with a Sunday phone call that disturbs Gamache’s reveries in his garden and expands to include a break-in, a murder, political intrigue and a greater threat than even Gamache could imagine. Penny’s ability to balance the idyllic village life in Three Pines with impressive thriller chops makes ‘The Grey Wolf’ a richly complicated, compulsively readable tale that’s well worth the two-year wait. “
“The latest Inspector Gamache book finds the Québécois homicide investigator looking into a series of disturbing incidents — and a possible terrorist plot...”
“Fans will not be disappointed… filled with courage… of ordinary people confronted by their worst fears. She alleviates one fear with the storyline in The Grey Wolf, but she leaves us waiting, with bated breath, for the next step in the story arc.”
"Penny’s follow-up to A World of Curiosities plays on readers’ fears as she launches a new story arc that is completed in this installment but presents a cliffhanger. It’s a frightening novel of duality, of good versus evil, with an allegorical tale for today’s world, as only Penny can write."
"One of the series' best... Penny pulls off the narrative’s uncharacteristically epic scope without a hitch, swapping fair-play puzzles for pulse-pounding cliffhangers without sacrificing intimate character moments. Gamache’s fans will be eager for his next adventure."
"The story is complex and intense, and, as always, artfully constructed and lyrically delivered."
"One of those rare triple-deckers that's actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat."
“With bursts of wit and warmth, the story exposes the deep fears and hurts – as well as the guiding lights and loves – that drive individuals to act.”
“Foiling this sinister plan rests on the actions of a fallible group of mortals who must choose between good and evil, action and inaction, courage and cowardice. The motto on Gamache’s office wall helpfully reminds: ‘Be not afraid.’”
"Subtle, compelling storytelling at its elegant best."
"Louise Penny’s beastly secrets in The Grey Wolf are a treat for old and new fans of Inspector Gamache."
“Everything about ‘The Grey Wolf’ builds to a thrilling climax that makes this one of the most action-packed books in the series.”
“A tense, satisfying tale.”
“The Canadian novelist Louise Penny is brilliant, mild-mannered, and the author of one blockbuster after another.”
AudioFile Magazine included THE GREY WOLF in their list of Best Audiobooks for 2024