The Grey Wolf

 

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #19

Mystery

2024

Finished on January 29, 2026

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

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.

It's been almost two years since I read A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny's eighteenth installment in her Three Pines series. I loved that mystery, giving it a perfect 5-star rating. My husband and my mom both read Penny's next book (The Grey Wolf) and neither were that impressed, so I wasn't eager to pick it up anytime soon, especially when they told me it had a cliff-hanger. I decided to wait until The Black Wolf was published, with the intention of reading the two books back-to-back.

The Grey Wolf took a very long time to reveal the plot, and while I wasn't close to calling it quits, I was growing more and more impatient for the author to pull me in. Not only did I miss Three Pines and its inhabitants (most of the action takes place elsewhere), but struggled to keep track of the numerous characters sprinkled throughout the narrative. Eventually, the book reached a climax and I couldn't put it down, but as I mentioned, the ending was partially unresolved. Before I finished the mystery, I had decided not to go ahead with the follow-up for a few weeks, eager to read something else from my shelves. But once I read the last page, I knew I couldn't resist starting The Black Wolf. The suspense was too strong!

I was tempted to give The Grey Wolf a 4-star rating ("Very Good"), but decided that it was only the last third of the book that felt worthy of that distinction. So, I'm knocking it down a notch, but am hopeful that The Black Wolf is more satisfying. Judging from reviews on Goodreads, I am not the only reader who struggled with this mystery. Several readers have questioned whether it's time to say goodbye to Armand Gamache and friends. Time will tell...