The Black Wolf

Louise Penny’s 2025 novel, The Black Wolf, is a contemporary mystery and the 20th installment in her highly acclaimed Chief Inspector Gamache series. The story is a direct continuation of its predecessor, The Grey Wolf, and finds Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec grappling with the aftermath of a thwarted domestic terrorism plot. Convinced that the initial crisis was a misdirection for a larger conspiracy, Gamache, whose hearing has been severely damaged, must decipher clues left by a murdered biologist to uncover a threat with international implications. The novel explores themes of The Manipulation of Truth in an Age of Deception, Trust and Betrayal in the Face of Crisis, and The Moral Sacrifices Required to Fight Evil.

Penny is a celebrated Canadian author whose work is deeply rooted in her home province of Québec, Canada, the primary setting for the Gamache series. She has received numerous accolades for her crime fiction, including multiple Agatha and Anthony Awards, and is an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contributions to the arts. The plot of The Black Wolf taps into contemporary anxieties surrounding resource scarcity, misinformation, and geopolitical tensions, drawing parallels to real-world events like the 2023 Canadian wildfires and the rise of online conspiracy theories. The popular book series was adapted into a television show titled Three Pines, starring Alfred Molina as Chief Inspector Gamache, which aired for one season on Amazon Prime Video.

This guide refers to the 2025 First US Edition published by Minotaur Books.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is haunted by the belief that a recently thwarted plot to poison Montréal’s water supply was merely a prelude to a larger threat. His instincts tell him that the danger isn’t over. Furthermore, his hearing was severely damaged in an explosion during the crisis. He and his seconds-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste, re-examine a notebook left by the murdered biologist Charles Langlois and find that it contains a final, more critical warning. Gamache recalls the legend of the gray wolf, symbolizing peace and decency, in conflict with the black wolf, which symbolizes hate. He fears that the latter is still at large. He is also troubled by Langlois’s cryptic dying word: “family.”

In a parallel storyline, Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, head of the Sûreté’s Organized Crime Division, receives a call from mob boss Joseph Moretti. He is furious that Gamache interfered with the “first part of the plan” and questions how much Gamache knows (6). Feeling like she underestimated Gamache, Tardiff agrees to meet Moretti at the Jean-Talon market, telling her assistant, Agent Yvette Nichol, that she has no choice.

In the village of Three Pines, Beauvoir finds Gamache in the basement of St. Thomas’s Church with a map of Québec that Langlois had marked up and hidden in a monastery. They focus on Langlois’s intense interest in a specific remote, pristine lake. In the village bistro, the artist Clara Morrow struggles with her new series of paintings titled Just before something happens…, while her friend Myrna Landers, a psychologist, observes Gamache and his team conferring by the fire, sensing their shared purpose.

The investigation expands as Gamache recruits his friend Dr. Vivienne LaPierre, an environmental biologist, to accompany Lacoste to the remote lake. Meanwhile, Beauvoir travels to the Archambault penitentiary to interrogate Marcus Lauzon, the former deputy prime minister convicted for the poison plot. Lauzon refuses to speak to anyone but Gamache. Gamache’s wife, Reine-Marie, a former archivist, examines the map and discovers a small arrow indicating movement from Vermont into Canada. Gamache summons Jeanne Caron, Lauzon’s former chief of staff, to Three Pines. They discuss the disappearance of her assistant, Frederick Castonguay, who vanished after helping her escape an attack. Reine-Marie determines that Langlois’s line on the map, if extended, leads to Jericho, Vermont.

At the remote northern lake, Lacoste and Vivienne discover a recent campsite and a smooth river rock deliberately placed at the base of a tree. Vivienne’s tests reveal an unusually high alkaline pH level in the water, which she later attributes to ash from recent megafires. At the base of the tree, they find a small arrow and the letters “cl” carved into the bark. Following the arrow’s direction into the woods proves fruitless, but Lacoste makes a far grimmer discovery: a shallow grave containing a body wrapped in a green garbage bag.

Gamache meets with his secret informant, investigative journalist Shona Dorion, who has infiltrated Action Québec Bleu (AQB), the environmental non-profit where Langlois worked. Shona has found references to “FEDS” and “DC” in AQB’s files, along with evidence that the organization is being used to launder millions of dollars in bribes paid to Lauzon. The body from the lake is soon identified as Frederick Castonguay, who was executed mob-style.

Gamache orchestrates a staged Sunday lunch at his home, bringing together Lauzon, temporarily in his custody, and Evelyn Tardiff. During the tense meal, Lauzon suggests that Prime Minister James Woodford is the true “black wolf.” As he feigns a stumble, Lauzon whispers “FEDS” to Gamache, ensuring that Tardiff cannot hear. Gamache later confronts Tardiff, revealing that he knows she is the Sûreté’s informant inside Moretti’s organization. She admits it but denies knowledge of a new plot. Meanwhile, Lacoste visits Castonguay’s family and discovers an old class photo revealing that Castonguay and Langlois were once childhood best friends.

Troubled by the new connections, Gamache flies back to the remote lake with Lacoste. While examining the carving on the tree, he realizes that the arrow points not “into” the woods but “up.” Lacoste climbs the tree and retrieves a green garbage bag containing Langlois’s missing laptop.

Back in Three Pines, Agent Nichol realizes that the string of numbers and symbols on the map is the laptop’s password. The laptop contains a deliberately misspelled file titled “Water Shed,” which contains IP addresses leading to a hidden dark-web domain ending in “.family.” Gamache and Lacoste meet with Prime Minister Woodford in Ottawa, who dismisses their warnings. Gamache then meets General Bert Whitehead, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Haskell Opera House, a theater straddling the US-Canada border. Whitehead reveals that “FEDS” stands for Fire Event Detection Suite, a technology that predicts where ash from megafires will fall. He confirms the existence of “War Plan Red,” a secret US plan to invade Canada for its water resources, using a staged wildfire as a pretext.

The conspiracy escalates rapidly. Nichol traces the online disinformation campaign to Tardiff’s address, but Lauzon claims that Tardiff is a covert Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agent and that Jeanne Caron is the true mastermind. In Washington, DC, General Whitehead is shot by an assassin while attempting to brief the US president. The attack, meant to silence him, is witnessed via live security feed by Gamache and the others, who are on lockdown in the prime minister’s office. 

Gamache, Lacoste, and Shona enact a plan to expose Woodford. Gamache repeatedly shouts “War Plan Red,” provoking the prime minister into a violent overreaction that Shona live-streams to respected journalist Paul Workman. Before being detained, Gamache passes a slip of paper with the IP address and password for War Plan Red to the minister of public safety, Robert Ferguson. The minister of defense, Giselle Trudel, retrieves the document from the corrupt Ferguson and discovers the full invasion plan. Aided by Captain Pinsent, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer in charge of security who defies the order to arrest them, the group escapes. Marie Lauzon, the prime minister’s chief of staff and Marcus Lauzon’s daughter, provides a key document she retrieved, revealing the true masterminds: Lauzon, Caron, and Ferguson. Their plan was to frame Woodford, have him removed, and install Lauzon as the leader of a new regime. The incendiary bombers are located at an airfield in Mont-Laurier.

The plot culminates in a series of final confrontations. Lacoste and Shona are captured at the Mont-Laurier airfield by Ferguson but are rescued by Captain Pinsent’s team, stopping the bombers. Simultaneously, Beauvoir and Nichol, guided by Lauzon, rescue Tardiff from a mob execution, confirming Caron’s direct involvement. Gamache arrests Caron at the Haskell Opera House with US assistance. He then returns to Three Pines, where Lauzon is arrested in a citizen’s arrest carried out by Reine-Marie and her and Gamache’s son, Daniel.

In the following months, the conspiracy unravels, leading to numerous arrests on both sides of the border. One such arrest is of Prime Minister Woodford, who Gamache discovers is the real “black wolf” behind the plot. Gamache’s team gives an exclusive debrief to Workman and Shona. Shona, struggling with trauma, finds support in Three Pines, while Lauzon is released from prison; prosecutors, with the court’s agreement, decide that he has “paid the price” for his other serious crimes (367). A year later, Gamache and Reine-Marie reflect on the events. They acknowledge that while this plot was foiled, the underlying threat of the global water crisis and the potential for future conflicts remains.