The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny ***

The Madness of Crowds is Louise Penny’s Covid-19 novel (#17 in the Inspector Gamache series). Starting with the people allowed to die from Covid-19 in nursing homes, the novel explores justifications for torture and murder from science to euthanasia to self-defense. Warning: some of the torture scenes are vivid. This is not what I was looking for.

There is a murder in Three Pines that Chief Inspector Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Isabelle Lacoste solve. The antecedents include the murder of a Down Syndrome child, a couple of suicides, the murder of child soldiers, death by neglect of Covid-19 victims, and torture of human scientific subjects. This is a story with a high body count.

Fans of Louise Penny will be happy to know that everyone in Three Pines survived the Covid-19 pandemic and make appearances in this book.

If you are tired of forensic scientists solving crimes in ever more technical ways, this novel is perfect. There is very little evidence. The lack of evidence is replaced by extensive philosophical discussions about human nature and motivations for murder. My one complaint is that these discussions ping-pong between the handful of suspects so often that by the end, I didn’t care who the murderer was. I’d have been happy if an explosion had done away with them all -- not one of them was worthy of redemption.

I enjoyed the early Gamache novels, but I do not recommend this one.

Great quotes:

Great sentences leading to wisdom: “‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I was wrong.’ ‘I don’t know.’” As he listed them, Chief Inspector Gamache raised a finger, until his palm was open. “‘I need help.’”

100^th monkey: “No, nothing special at all about her,” said Gilbert. “Interesting, isn’t it? Why it should suddenly take off like that? What difference that one monkey, the hundredth, made. What’s even more interesting is that they then discovered monkeys on other islands doing the same thing. None of them had washed their sweet potatoes before, but now they all were.”

Detective process: “I can’t see how it can relate to the murder of Deborah Schneider on New Year’s Eve,” said the coroner, pulling her coat off the back of the chair. “Neither can I,” admitted Gamache. “We’re just assembling the pieces. Most are not helpful.”

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The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb *****

The Violin Conspiracy (debut novel) by Brendan Slocumb is the story of Ray McMillian, an underprivileged violin genius: how he inherits a Stradivarius violin, gets accepted to the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and has his violin stolen. Ray’s story is an emotional roller coaster making this a book that you can’t put down. Highly recommended.

In addition to rags-to-riches and the violin heist, the author (a violinist himself) displays the joy of playing and performing classical music. Ray practices for hours to learn each piece in his muscle memory and then infuses his performance with the emotions and imagery he feels.

The final theme is racism. Ray is black and faces racism at every turn. People don’t believe he can play classical music. Cops arrest him believing he has stolen the violin.

The author has a message, but it doesn’t get in the way of a thrilling story.

“Musicians of color, however, are severely underrepresented in the classical music world—and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to write this book. Look up the statistics: 1.8 percent of musicians performing in classical symphonies are Black; 12 percent are people of color. But for me, day to day, performance by performance, it wasn’t about being a statistic: it was about trying to live my life and play the music that I loved, and often being stymied for reasons that seem, even now, incomprehensible.”

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The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich is MINNEAPOLIS from November 2019 to October 2020. Covid-19. George Floyd. Tookie works in Birchbark Books which specializes in Native American books and is haunted. Birchbark Books is on W. 21^st St. in Minneapolis and is owned by the author. Historical fiction that explores ritual and tradition from Native American practices to police brutality. A wild ride.

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The Child Buyer by John Hersey *****

SPOILERS. In The Child Buyer by John Hersey (Hiroshima, A Bell for Adano), Wissey Jones wanted to buy Barry Rudd (a maladjusted genius). Jones planned to brainwash Barry until he was a blank brain (no memories, feeling, or senses) and train that brain to solve difficult problems (IQ over 1,000). I read this when it was first published (1960s) and I still remember the final question - after everyone has agreed for Barry to be sold.

Is Barry so brilliant that he can resist the brainwashing (something that was much on my teenage mind)? When asked if he would resist, Barry answers, “Oh, no. Once I go, I’ll go the whole way. It would be wonderful, but of course, this is impossible [to experience the] process twice, one co-operatively, once fighting it.” This was the ultimate question for me, whether to fight society or join it. Like Barry Rudd, I joined.

A classic from 1960. Surprisingly timely.

The novel is presented in the form of hearing transcripts.” In the process, the author satirizes politicians and school administrators, while supporting unions, teachers, sex education, and diversity. This is a book in support of children and against privilege.

Teaching

A state senator asks, “Do you mean to suggest, miss, that a teacher ought to be supplied, gratis, with all the amenities—hot soup, medical insurance, fringe benefits of all kinds?” He continues, “Do you mean to suggest that teaching is not a service career, a calling – I mean, that people go into teaching for the material ends in life?”

Immorality

President of the PTA, President of the Republican Women’s Club, President of… says, “…the delinquency problem…I think it must’ve been our young men going overseas, the last couple of wars, mixing with foreign riff-raff, geisha girls, existentialists. Our Customs people ought to charge a duty on immorality. It’s all imported. You know that.”

Mass Education

We’ve got standards. [Barry Rudd] missed out on his fundamentals… He’s got to learn to catch a ball. Be a boy… That boy is one-sided… There are other things in life besides biological research… The boy has to learn to be a citizen and conform.”

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