Storymusing Review: The Grey Wolf: A Novel by Louise Penny

 

The Grey Wolf: A Novel

by Louise Penny

November’s theme for our book club was “places you’d like to visit.” I’m afraid I didn’t so much look for books that fit that theme, taking me outside my comfort zone, as pick books I wanted to read anyway that were set in places I wouldn’t mind visiting.

British village? Yes, please. The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald fit right in. I listened to that one on my commute and had many a laugh out of it. The characters were unique and quirky, bringing humorous twists to the traditional murder mystery. I highly recommend it.

My main read, The Grey Wolf: A Novel by Louise Penny, is set in Canada, throughout many parts of the countryside and Montreal, plus has characters flying off to Washington D.C. and Europe. I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect book for our theme if I tried.

I have wanted to read The Grey Wolf for a month, but it’s hard to get your hands on a copy in my library, digital or print. However, I was in a little village near home with my daughter and decided to stop in at the library there while we were killing time waiting for the farm store to open. Their display of books held not one, but two copies of The Grey Wolf. Small libraries for the win!

I’ve been reading in hard print whenever I can lately to help me unwind so I happily checked one out and sat down in my chair with a cup of coffee to start reading right after lunch.

The book begins with short chapters. I found each scene to be an individual puzzle piece with a certain color or pattern, defining a certain plotline or subplot of the story. As I read on, new chapters attached another piece to the puzzle until it all took on a shape and began to make sense.

Though the village in the story, Three Pines, is fictional, I love visiting there each time a new book comes out. It sounds so peaceful, with the village bistro for community and the little church to sit in and reflect.

The story opens in the village with our hero, Armand Gamache, head of the Surete in Quebec, relaxing in his garden with his wife, Reine-Marie.

A persistent caller that Armand does not want to speak to provokes him and our favorite village residents are soon drawn into the story. There’s the old poet Ruth and her swearing duck, the retired psychologist / bookstore owner Myrna, Gabri and Olivier who own the bistro, and the artist Clara. (Though I will say that Clara finding candy in her hair and actually eating it is a little off putting. But maybe that’s just me.)

Gamache is also surrounded by his family as the story progresses, with his daughter and son plus their families. There’s his trusty co-workers Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabel Lacoste.

Many important characters from past stories are revisited in this book, but not all in the capacity that we’ve known them. I was so disappointed in the choices some characters ended up making, characters we had once loved. But that is the crux of the story.

One of the biggest difficulties for Gamache in this book is knowing who to trust and who not to trust. Who are the bad guys? It’s not a new situation for him, but it’s a painful one at times.

How far will someone go? Do the ends justify the means? And keeping fear from leading to inaction is one of the biggest tests people often face.

One of my favorite parts of the book begins rather abruptly with Jean-Guy saying, “Oh God, oh God, oh shit.”

A pilot has insisted it’s okay to take off but now Armand and Jean-Guy are in a small plane flying through a storm and afraid they aren’t going to make it. The pilot isn’t sure anymore either.

The handling of the subplot for about thirty-five pages, intertwined with the rest of the story, the tension, feels like a masterful touch to draw the reader onward.

I adore the little bits of French that are sprinkled throughout the text, and the reminders that though we’re reading in English, they often aren’t speaking in English.

The pacing is not frenetic but it does move at a good clip. I think part of that is the judicious use of a variety of sentence lengths and the fact that there are tensions falling and rising, keeping the characters on their toes. I can’t stand stories where the tension rises and rises but nothing ever happens. Penny has things happen that the characters have to work through. She puts the characters in hot water and we see how they struggle and emerge, usually changed in some way.

I highly recommend this book. Three Pines is a wonderful place to visit.