The Grey Wolf

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and addiction.

Canada’s geographical and political subdivisions inform the structure and background of The Grey Wolf. Quebec, the province where the story occurs, has a long history of separatism from the rest of the nation, and the province conducts some state functions, such as law enforcement, through a provincial institution. Quebec’s official language is French, and government office names and documentation are in French, in contrast to the rest of Canada, where documentation is available in either English or French. In the television adaptation of the series, Three Pines (2022, Amazon Prime Video), characters routinely alternate between speaking in English and French, but in the books, dialogue is presented almost entirely in English for the benefit of English-speaking readers.

Quebec is home to Sûreté du Quebec, the provincial policing service. Because Quebec covers a large geographic area, while the population is extremely concentrated in few cities, the Sûreté has some elements of a regional police force, such as enforcing traffic law on interprovincial highways, and some elements of a federal enforcement agency, such as investigating terrorism and international crimes involving Quebec. Rank in the Sûreté du Quebec is idiosyncratic: The lowest ranks are referred to as agents, followed (in order of increasing rank) by sergeants, lieutenants, capitaines, inspecteurs, inspecteur-chief, general staff, directeurs adjoint, and directeur general. The relatively small number of divisions in rank is a result of the Quebec Sûreté being between the scale of a national and a regional policing service. Because of the small number of divisions, in The Grey Wolf, the head of the homicide division, Armand Gamache, conducts investigations, but even within the context of the story, he’s exceptionally hands-on for someone of his rank.