The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache, Bk 17)
Author:
Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Book Type: Hardcover
Judith L. (jlautner) reviewed on + 105 more book reviews
I have one major quibble with this book, and one major applause, and they are related.
Penny, in this novel, declares the pandemic "over". Everything is back to normal, nothing to worry about, nobody's dying anymore. That is simply not true. A lot of people believe the vaccines were the whole answer and they were not. People are still dying and Covid keeps mutating so we never know when it might turn into something even more horrific than what we've seen. It makes no sense to pretend it's all over.
Because of the failure of health organizations around the world, and world leaders, we are stuck with Covid. It could have been nipped in the bud and it wasn't. So we are stuck with it. So it is understandable that we will all find ways to live with it. I do not propose that we all hide out in our homes or that we wear masks everywhere, outdoors as well as in. But it's smart to take reasonable precautions. Thus I don't fault Penny for representing her characters as returning to some kind of normal. I just feel it suggests that she does not understand the disease.
What I applaud is that this whole novel takes on an issue that was raised by Covid, bigtime, yet has not really been addressed adequately. That is the casual way many people chose to dismiss the lives of the elderly and the compromised, as if they have no value to anyone. The callous disregard, to me, has been shocking.
Thus arises the character of Abigail Robinson, a professor of statistics. She has examined the effects of Covid and came to the conclusion that the world's economy and future depend on our getting rid of these "frail" persons. Essentially, mandatory euthanasia. And she is getting quite a following.
When Inspector Gamache is called on to provide security for a talk she is giving, he doesn't know much about her, but he soon grasps the horror of it, realizing that, among others, his grandchild with Down Syndrome would be targeted in Robinson's world.
The professor's talk does not go well, as it is interrupted by unexpected events. Not long after, there is a death. And here is when Gamache and team get to move in for real, to find the killer.
The possibilities turn out to be many, and it seems that the investigators go back and forth and up and down trying each one out. For me it actually got tiresome. I was grateful that there was less of the "I'm FINE" activity (Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical), but there was a lot of quoting of the same lines from poems, and of the phrase "All will be well". I reached a saturation point. I am less fond of these books that I had been, having been treated to the same lines so many times before.
Penny, in this novel, declares the pandemic "over". Everything is back to normal, nothing to worry about, nobody's dying anymore. That is simply not true. A lot of people believe the vaccines were the whole answer and they were not. People are still dying and Covid keeps mutating so we never know when it might turn into something even more horrific than what we've seen. It makes no sense to pretend it's all over.
Because of the failure of health organizations around the world, and world leaders, we are stuck with Covid. It could have been nipped in the bud and it wasn't. So we are stuck with it. So it is understandable that we will all find ways to live with it. I do not propose that we all hide out in our homes or that we wear masks everywhere, outdoors as well as in. But it's smart to take reasonable precautions. Thus I don't fault Penny for representing her characters as returning to some kind of normal. I just feel it suggests that she does not understand the disease.
What I applaud is that this whole novel takes on an issue that was raised by Covid, bigtime, yet has not really been addressed adequately. That is the casual way many people chose to dismiss the lives of the elderly and the compromised, as if they have no value to anyone. The callous disregard, to me, has been shocking.
Thus arises the character of Abigail Robinson, a professor of statistics. She has examined the effects of Covid and came to the conclusion that the world's economy and future depend on our getting rid of these "frail" persons. Essentially, mandatory euthanasia. And she is getting quite a following.
When Inspector Gamache is called on to provide security for a talk she is giving, he doesn't know much about her, but he soon grasps the horror of it, realizing that, among others, his grandchild with Down Syndrome would be targeted in Robinson's world.
The professor's talk does not go well, as it is interrupted by unexpected events. Not long after, there is a death. And here is when Gamache and team get to move in for real, to find the killer.
The possibilities turn out to be many, and it seems that the investigators go back and forth and up and down trying each one out. For me it actually got tiresome. I was grateful that there was less of the "I'm FINE" activity (Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical), but there was a lot of quoting of the same lines from poems, and of the phrase "All will be well". I reached a saturation point. I am less fond of these books that I had been, having been treated to the same lines so many times before.
