I’m really not big fan of Louise Penny but I keep trying to like her books.  Over some time I read the first 5 in her Detective Ganache series but I usually quit or slipped into blank out mode.  I’ve even tried a couple with the new audio narrator. Robert Bathurst, and those are better but really, no thank you.  I don’t mean to try them over and over but the plots keep sounding good or friends keep recommending them. This one takes place during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays and that got me hoping to find another seasonal read.  LOL!   

 
The Madness of Crowds 
Louise Penny
Read by Robert Bathurst 14h 50m
Rating –  7, A-  / cozy detective who-done-it 

There’s something just too precious and idyllic about the setting and it’s characters.  Retired Chief of Police Armand Gamache lives with his wife and near his daughter and her small family in a tiny, quiet, and artsy village somewhere aways south of Quebec but still north of the US. His fellow villagers, artists and writers and intellectuals of all stripes and ages with several ethnicities and sexual orientations get together for little faires and benefits or sometimes just for an evening at the local bistro owned and operated by a gay couple. 

 But various serious crimes happen and the good detective always steps up to the plate. Oh, it gets cloyingly idyllic. So I’d just say it’s very cozy who-done-it type of procedural.  

I’ve read that the setting is deliberately too idyllic and that this promotes a kind of atmosphere many readers thoroughly enjoy. I’m put off by it but I think the books have fine plots –

Here’s a list of characters in the different books: 

https://www.bookcompanion.com/the_madness_of_crowds_character_list.html

I’m not going to bother with a whole plot synopsis but from the blurbs it sounded like it was going to be about free speech and the ultra-conservative crowds these days. That’s not what it is. It’s about a scientist who encourages forced euthanasia for the elderly and infirm. This idea has enemies and the scientist involved has a long and complex history as well. There are dead bodies.