The Grey Wolf

A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, Book 19)

By: Louise Penny

Narrated by: Jean Brassard

"Brassard's accents—whether French Canadian, Italian, or continental French—create indelible characters. His performance lets us feel Reine Marie's warmth and Armand's affectionate nature, and he adds an additional layer to surly Ruth and her potty-mouthed duck. Exciting and entertaining."—AudioFile (Earphones Award winner)

The 19th mystery in the #1 New York Times-bestselling Armand Gamache series.

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

That's only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin THE GREY WOLF, the nineteenth novel in Louise Penny's #1 New York Times-bestselling series. A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading "this might interest you", a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list—and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching.

Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command, and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. Their hunt grows increasingly desperate, even frantic, as the enormity of the creature they’re chasing becomes clear. If they fail the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages.

Including Three Pines.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

©2024 Louise Penny (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Authentic accent cannot compensate...

....for poor voice acting. Though Mr. Brassard has a background in both acting and singing, it didn't translate into being a good voice actor. He is an adequate reader, but audiobooks are and should be more than someone merely READING out loud. Other than how he voiced Armand Gamache (which I especially disliked) all the other characters sound too alike. As another reviewer noted, this made it necessary to rewind several times in order to follow who said what.

As to the story itself: the premise of such great threat would have been better served, in my opinion, with more attention to depicting the person/persons behind it. I guess this proves that the premise of a 'shadowy villain' can be taken too far for said villain to seem powerful or motivated enough to carry out the threat. I disliked that Three Pines regulars barely figured in this story, having random cameos here and there, but did enjoy the tie-in to a previous favorite story in the series. I am struggling to finish this book which is disappointing.

I don't know how much weight Audible reviews have with production decisions--I suspect not enough. I doubt that I will be pre-ordering future Louise Penny books with this narrator.

I love Louise Penny's work, but...

I could not get behind this book.
The new narrator sounded like a gangster, not the warm narration of the previous person.
I found the story rather boring. I missed the characters from Three Pines!
I did not listen to the whole book.

The new narrator is absolutely horrible

Louise Penny tries to sell us on the new narrator in the beginning of this book and now I know why now. I always give new narrators a chance but halfway through the book I have just decided yuck. He is boring! There's no inflection in the voices, he ruins the story. I just don't have anything positive to say about this new narrator. In fact this is a detriment to these stories. I love the series, but I just don't think that this new narrator is going to work out. You can't even tell when he goes from one character to the next character, every character has the exact same voice. In fact the whole thing just puts me to sleep. I'm so sorry I don't usually leave reviews, but this must be said and very sad😞

Gamache is dead

I've sadly returned this title. While I love this series and the writing continues to entertain and intrigue, the new narrator murders the Chief of Homicide. Unlike the last switch, Louise Penny provides no explanation for changing course other than to say she been thinking a Québécois should act as the narrator. The problem with choosing a francophone for the narrator is that he's not able to capture the depth of Armand in English. The hall mark of Gamache is silent authority and natural leadership. His sanguine demeanor belies the complexities of the man beneath. His kindness often surprises most who meet him professionally. In the mouth of this narrator, Gamache sounds terse and petty. Instead of gentle requests that magnify his natural authority through his subordinates ' desire to fulfill their orders to the best of their ability, this Gamache barks out commands in a querulous voice. Jean Guy, the character who has struggled to overcome his tendency to flatten his emotional range to angry machismo, becomes a blubbering, out of control Luffy.

This reading also butchers the rythmn of the work. When speaking as the novel's narrator, the reader has a tendency to end paragraphs with a slight hesitation into an iamb. The result begins to sound sing song. And while his pronunciation is perfect, as a listener, I felt that he read each paragraph perfectly as he intended but failed to deliver any connection to the other paragraphs. It was less a narration than some reading English perfectly.

My guess is that this narrator is not a native English speaker, and learned perfect English through school. In a series that relies so much on the plumbing the emotional backstory of the characters, only an Anglophone can reach across the two dimensions of the page to find all the non-semantic expression needed to fulfill the writing's height. I mean, why would Gamache's inner voice sound as if he thought to himself in a second language unless that was the basis of the story. I'll have to finish the series in book format.

The new narrator ruined the magic

For the first time since Still Life, I’ve not been able to finish a Three Pines mystery on Audible—the narrator is simply not up to the task. His interpretation flattens the magic, humor and love that Penny so brilliantly uses to develop her repeating characters. The Three Pines alchemy is gone.

new narrator was a distraction.

my least favorite of the series. just plain disappointed. please bring back my friends at the bistro on three pines.

horrible narrator.

When the original Gamache narrator sadly passed away, there was an almost seamless transition to the new narrator.
According to book one, Still Life, Gamache spoke with a British accent described as sounding from the House of Lords. Later books it was described as warm, smooth and deep. So why do we have to transition to an actor from Quebec? The French is difficult enough to follow in these books. Then add in a narrator who is a francophone? Obviously he speaks in a French accent. Then add in a gravelly voice. He is terrible at doing voices. Amost as disappointing as the TV show Three Pines. I returned it after 2 or 3 hours of attempting to follow. This will be the first Gamache that I won't read. Sad.

Narrator Fails

I feel compelled to write a review about half way through this book. When I first downloaded this book, I was disconcerted to see so many negative reviews about the new narrator. I thought perhaps that people had been too quick to judge a new voice and that the narration couldn’t be that bad. I was wrong. I’m not certain why Ms. Penny chose this particular narrator. Perhaps the deciding factor was that he was Québécois. Whatever the reason, this narrative significantly detracts from Ms. Penny’s writing and her excellent characters. It is almost impossible to distinguish between the voices of all the characters. There is little expression in the reader’s voice and no distinction among accents or between genders. As others have noted, please go back to the talented narration found in previous books.

Disappointed

This story portrayed beloved Armand Gamache not as a reflective and compassionate Renaissance man who quotes literature and poetry, but as an angry,impatient, and gruff man. The suspension of disbelieve required to truly engage in the story was a bridge too far. Maybe the narration was the problem-very distracting and I kept wondering if the narrator even listened to any of the earlier audio books. He missed the mark; portraying nearly every character with a thick Quebecois accent likewise deviated from prior descriptions of the characters. I preordered the book in January and after the long wait, I was sadly disappointed.

the new reader is a downgrade

He is a reader but not a narrator. I had to stop listening and will wait for the Kindle version from my library, because if you can't tell it's Ruth speaking unless it's stated "Ruth said", it's just too disappointing. the story did catch my attention so I will read it eventually on a Kindle.