The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #17)

by Louise Penny

If we only ever allow lectures on topics we’re ‘okay’ with, the University wouldn’t be much of a place of learning, now would it? We’d never explore new ideas. Radical ideas. Even what might be considered dangerous ideas. We’d just keep going around and around saying and hearing the same old thing. The echo chamber. No, this university is open to new ideas.” “This isn’t a new idea.”

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My God, thought Gamache, pulling back from the edge. This’s how it starts. This’s what Abigail Robinson does, even from a distance. Just discussing her can sow the seeds of anger. And, with it, fear. And yes. He was afraid. That her statistics and graphs would

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come to believe, to support, the insupportable.

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“It helps to know the personality

“A friend of ours quotes Robert Frost,” he said. “A poem begins as a lump in the throat. The artists I know feel the same way. Do mathematicians?”

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It was written on his face. The lines and creases. Not age. Not all, anyway. They were a map of his life. Of his beliefs. Of the stands he’d taken and the blows he’d suffered.

Me

“‘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.’” Beauvoir looked into Gamache’s

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