More honesty from Louise Penny

the mystery genre is for people who ask big questions

John Truby, in his Anatomy of Genre says each story form, or genre (he identifies 14) appeals because it represents a particular view of the world, and a way to ask and answer questions about life.

Truby places the genres in a kind of hierarchy, with Horror at the bottom, and Love at the top. The function of Horror is to allow the reader to grapple with the reality of death. The Love story affirms that ultimately, it is love that allows us to survive, and thrive, even when human existence is daunting.

As a mystery reader and author, I’m delighted Truby ranks the Detective/Thriller genre above Fantasy, and just below Love. The protagonist looks for truth and pursues those guilty of crime, in spite of the danger.

It takes courage to seek truth, particularly if that truth is unsettling, or even impolite.

It takes a certain courage for a best-selling mystery author to name a truth that will be off-putting to much of her readership.

Louise Penny’s The Grey Wolf is a story about Armand Gamache and his team of investigators putting their careers and lives on the line to stop a particularly cruel domestic terrorist plot. Along the way, it is also a reflection on power, and how the raw lust for power so easily leads to corruption.

Her book is not about the current state of the relationship between the U.S. (where so many of Penny’s readers live) and Canada (where Penny lives), but even so, during a scene in which one of Gamache’s investigators is speaking with a high-ranking American military official, she offers the following observation:

“… Canada, as far as America’s political elite knew, did not really exist. And if it did, it was merely an inconvenient extension of their nation. A sort of younger sibling that sometimes tried to assert itself but could always be put in its place.”

p. 239, The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny, 2024 Minotaur Books