Louise Penny’s The Grey Wolf

I’m re-reading Penny’s most recent novel, in anticipation of next fall’s companion volume, The Black Wolf.

On Instagram this morning, Penny shared the advance copy (very advance: publication is still six months out).

And tickets are now on sale for fall book events in Toronto and Vancouver; the Ottawa book launch at the National Arts Centre, re-scheduled from the Kennedy Centre, sold out in hours.

So although today is a grading and wrapping-up-the-term day, a few minutes on The Grey Wolf.

Early in the novel, we learn that a young biologist who has been researching water security became alarmed about what he learned.

He’s murdered, after an elaborate effort to attract Gamache’s attention. But his conversation with Gamache produced more frustrating questions and evasions than answers.

Then Gamache elected in a split-second decision to save the life of a bystander, a young girl, when a speeding car launched itself at him and his companion. That means that the man’s knowledge has died with him, the word “family” the last one that he spoke. And alarmingly, when Gamache reassured him that he would contact his family, the young man’s dying eyes conveyed not acceptance, or reassurance, but panic.

When Gamache breaks the news to the parents, he learns that they’ve been estranged from their son, who had been addicted to drugs, for more than a year. But he sees the same panic in the mother’s eyes. What is she scared about?

The parents’ plight reminds him of a terrible episode in his own son, Daniel’s, late teens, when he was involved with drugs. This episode will come back to haunt his whole family in The Grey Wolf.

To step back a few chapters, the novel opens with a phone call that Gamache repeatedly refuses to take. He’s happy at his home in Three Pines with his wife, and they’re enjoyed a beautiful August morning that’s shattered by the ringing of his phone.

When he does finally answer, Gamache, uncharacteristically, swears at the person calling him.

It’s an old nemesis: an MP’s aide who sought Gamache’s assistance years earlier with making fatal drunk driving charges go away. Gamache, acting with characteristic integrity, refused. And then he was punished.

That old wound has not healed, and there appears to be no forgiveness on either side.

This is an elaborate plot. even by Penny’s standards, and on my first read, the coincidences that piled up undermined my enjoyment of the book. Characters from previous novels re-appear in surprising new contexts. A substantial number of the GoodReads reviews are critical of the “grand conspiracy” mode in which Penny is writing here.

But between last fall’s long-awaited publication of The Grey Wolf (because Penny skipped a year, in adding to the series) and this historical moment, there’s been a shift in the world. For me, at least, conspiracies and malevolent elected rulers seem a bit more believable now.

One of the criticisms on GoodReads is that readers aren’t offered our usual immersive experience in croissants and café au lait in the bistro. Most of this book takes place away from the Eastern Townships community where fellowship and creativity are valued. This is a darker vision.

But Penny has promised that in the companion book, the evil she explores in The Grey Wolf will come to Three Pines. We’ve seen this before in her series, where the villagers have to come to Gamache’s aid or act in solidarity when threats are brought home.

The most salient point, perhaps, is how timely Penny was in anticipating a conspiracy (revealed in the next book in more detail than in this one) to make Canada the 51st state.

In The Grey Wolf, it’s all about water.

And Canada has massive freshwater sources and potable water that the U.S. craves. As far back as Chinatown, there were worries about desertification and drought in the U.S., and it’s a plot device that’s been used again and again. But if the solution is to tap Canada, then some of the recent news rumblings make more sense.

Tanking the stock market seems like an odd first step, but perhaps the logical extension of Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine” of taking advantage of catastrophes for political gain is actually creating the disaster.

I’m reminded of the readings I’ve assigned in recent years about Indigenous water protectors. Canada has a shameful history of polluting the lands and waters of Indigenous nations, with Grassy Narrows as perhaps the best (or worst) example.

The CTV news item I’ve linked to features expert Dr. Tricia Stadnyk, who points to the need for a national coordination strategy on water: the provinces make most of the decisions.

So if Trump has his eye on the Columbia River and wants to divert water to California, Canada needs a plan. Perhaps The Black Wolf will offer some guidance.