The Grey Wolf

I’m afraid Louise Penny has ruined the audio version of the series with this new “narrator” who is no more than a reader! Alexa would not be much different, except for the proper French pronunciations. I am so disappointed to lose all the nuances of the characters, their voices are GONE! She (Louise) claims that he is an actor, but he must only be a physical one, because he exhibits no voice acting here. Horrible choice for this series :(

As far as the story? I enjoyed the previous arc about the monastery, so I was looking forward to the return to “Between the Wolves”. I enjoyed her earlier books highlighting different Quebecquois locations, and the history and culture of the area. Unfortunately, her later books are more political. I may read The Black Wolf, but otherwise, I am done with Louise Penny.

Because of the reader, I can not rate this higher than 2.5/3 stars.

I was so disappointed with this story. It has none of the charm and warmth between the characters of the previous Gamache books. The plot feels like a repeat of two or three of the previous books. And I agree that the reader of the audiobook does nothing to flesh out the individual characters. I appreciate the Québécois voice, but all the characters are read the same, whether young or old, female or male. I have loved Louise Penny’s writing for many years and have paid to see her interviewed in person several times, so I am sorry to have to give this book a negative review.

Summary: Inspector Gamache is back at the job but corruption and murder are still present and it is up to Gamache to save everyone.

I am a huge fan of the Inspector Gamache series. I reread the whole series a couple of years ago and participated in a group blogging project by a number of book reviewers who also love Gamache and Louise Penny. I definitely pre-order all books by Louise Penny and read them immediately. I have both read the print versions and listened to the audiobooks. There is a new audiobook narrator for this 19th book, bringing the series to three narrators now. The new narrator is Jean Brassard, who is from the area where the books are set. He does a good job with the narration and feels pretty similar to the previous narrators in the style and tone of the narration.

I did enjoy The Grey Wolf, but it feels like the story has been told already. Gamache is the head of homicide he is back in Quebec and splitting his time between Three Pines and Montreal. While in Three Pines he gets notice that the sensor of his apartment in Montreal indicates that it has been broken into. Beauvoir checks it out, but can't see anything missing or wrong, so they chalk it up to a bad sensor. The next day, Gamache's coat is delivered to the police headquarters with two notes inside. And that starts a long thread that leads to an investigation of corruption and murder.

The book is well written if the thread of corruption had not already been done a couple of times. I noticed that Armond is again described as being in his late 50s, which is exactly how he was described in the early books. Since that time Beauvoir has married Annie and both of the Gamache children have children. No less than 10 years have passed, but Gamache is still in his late 50s and at the top of his game. I don't think that Penny makes Gamache into the near superhero that he has been in some of the books, but still, a number of the choices seem forced or go over the same ground as other books

I do love this series and this book ends, but also has a cliffhanger. So there is another book coming. But I wonder whether the series should be wrapped up. Some characters from the previous books show up and we have to decide if they are good or bad. Part of the reason for the title is a discussion about whether a character is the good wolf (grey) or the bad wolf (black) and the cover designer just drew two grey wolves. It is a sign of laziness with the whole project.

As I have said many times, I love this series because of the characters more than the mystery. This book got a little too complicated trying to throw up red herrings to keep the reader interested. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on long before Gamache did. But I also tend to just let the story happen because I know that Penny regularly tries to mislead the reader. I think Penny is trying to be too clever with the plot and not focused enough on the characters.

But I am going to be contributing to the problem with the weakness of this book because I will keep pre-ordering and keep reading. The Grey Wolf was not a bad novel. But it wasn't as good as I thought it should have been. Maybe that is unfair, but it is a series that I love. So I am holding it to pretty high standards.


Previously posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-grey-wolf/