The Madness of Crowds

The novel begins on a late December day. The COVID-19 pandemic recently ended. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and several of his trusted officers, including Agent Lacoste and Agent Jean-Guy Beauvoir, are providing a police presence at a public lecture being delivered by Professor Abigail Robinson, a researcher in statistics. The atmosphere is tense, and Gamache debates whether to shut down the event before it begins.

Gamache thinks back to the days before the lecture and his initial surprise at being asked to provide a police presence. On the day of the lecture, Gamache was surprised by how many people arrived, and how far they had traveled to attend. Gamache was shown the venue, a university campus building, by a caretaker named Monsieur Viau. The focus of Abigail Robinson’s lecture is not revealed, but she was initially commissioned by the government to prepare a report analyzing the outcomes of the pandemic and making future recommendations. Abigail’s conclusions were shocking and controversial: The government refused to publicize her recommendations, but she began to share them independently. She quickly gained a strong following, with her supporters rallying under the slogan “all will be well.