The Madness of Crowds: A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, 17)
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns to Three Pines in #1 New York Times bestseller Louise Penny's latest spellbinding novel, The Madness of Crowds.
You're a coward. Time and again, as the New Year approaches, that charge is leveled against Armand Gamache. It starts innocently enough. While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request. He's asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university. While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture. They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Before long, Professor Robinson's views start seeping into conversations. Spreading and infecting. So that truth and fact, reality and delusion are so confused it's near impossible to tell them apart. Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold. Abigail Robinson promises that, if they follow her, ça va bien aller. All will be well. But not, Gamache and his team know, for everyone. When a murder is committed it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion. And the madness of crowds.BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
This is my first Louis Penny and jumping into the Inspector Gamache series was smooth and enjoyable. I'll probably go back and read at least the first book in the series to enjoy more of the people who live in Three Pines.
I should leave it at that as I liked this book! Only read below if you want to read about my personal pet peeves!
The Robinson Report Statistics: The discussion of statistics was a complete mess and made me cringe. It was a glaring plot hole throughout. I wish she'd spoken to an actual statistician when writing the book as she clearly did not (and if she did, she didn't understand what they were saying). While an individual statistician can misrepresent reality either on purpose or through a bad study or analysis that's corrupted by poor scientific methodology: small sample size or specific types of bias. However, peer review specifically addresses these mistakes, and identifies what's correct or incorrect. While you can have false correlations, other statisticians would point those false correlations out, that's the whole point of peer review. You cannot "lie" with statistics and have it accepted by the statistics community at large.
The Robinson Report Recommendations/ Policy Opinions: Secondly, the application of underlying facts to policy has very little relation to statistics. Policy combines numerous specialties but most powerfully politics and law. How then could Robinson's paper be "true?" What statistician in their right mind would say it was factually correct? Statistics could show that a government doesn't have the resources to save x number of people in the next pandemic, but it couldn't determine that there were no alternative solutions such as: government fundraising, investment in medical innovation, investment in pandemic prevention, climate change innovation, etc. The entire discussion around Robinson seemed amateurish and frequently contradictory which was a problem because the people having the discussions were scientists and statisticians in addition to more easily forgiven laypeople.
Freedom of Speech: As an attorney, the conversation regarding freedom of speech completely missed the mark as well. Freedom of speech means your government does not arrest you or kill you for expressing political views. It does not necessitate anyone giving you a platform. And depending on your country, the government may arrest you for speech that immediately endangers people (in the US, yelling fire in a crowded theater; in Germany, which learned its lesson better than the rest of us, for dehumanizing speech or "Volksverhetzung.") I realize this takes place in Quebec, but I assume they also have some restrictions on speech, as civilization seems to require it.
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