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While the imminent threat of the attack on the water supply is resolved by the end of the novel, The Grey Wolf ends on a cliffhanger: “We have a problem.” What do you predict is the “problem” that Gamache finds in the pages of the second notebook?
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I’m looking forward to this next puzzle. I’m wondering if it could be a powerful cyber attack capability hidden among Canada’s remote areas by terrorists or an evil global power? Perhaps it’s an infectious bio weapon that makes Covid pale in comparison to global deaths and ruin. I’ll pre-order as soon as it’s available!
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I’ve been trying to think of this. It sounds like the mafia is involved, so presumably it involves making money somehow. Maybe a combination of accelerating scarcity of water supply (ruining some freshwater lakes) and getting the exclusive rights to other freshwater lakes somehow? Or… maybe somehow setting the stage for the U.S. to come in and start controlling Canadian fresh water supplies? Maybe the U.S. government could be covertly behind investors gaining the exclusive rights to Canadian freshwater lakes? My mind may be influenced by Trump’s recent joke about Canada becoming the 51st state.
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I like your prediction because you tie together a couple of loose threads. I agree that we could see more Americans involved in the plot for The Black Wolf. And I think that money and greed will play a big role in the motivations of the black wolves we’ll discover.
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Charles’ notebook about the lakes, the one David Lavigne most needed to destroy and his laptop which was never found. The red dot on the map where St. Gilbert is located. There are copper smelters in that area which emit arsenic. The results of Shona’s investigation into pollution wavers and the sale of controlling interest in Canadian resource-based companies. What was in the box that arrived before Dom Philippe left St. Gilbert? How did Parisi know that Charles was meeting Armand at Open Da Night? Will Sebastien be extradited to Canada from France? Who wasn’t arrested? Mafia? The use of paper between Armand, Isabelle and Jean-Guy rather than any electronic device. I see all of these as problems or complications.
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So many good points!
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I really like your inclusion of the topics Shona is supposed to be investigating. The US being involved in owning important resource based companies in Canada could make this a very twisted mess between two countries that have long shared peace. So reflective of today’s politics – scary stuff!
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I agree, Mei Lan and Libby. Nancy, this is an excellent summary of all the loose ends to keep an eye out for how LP will resolve them in TBW. I am looking forward to next October!
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I cannot begin to pin down what exactly is going to happen but I think the attack on Montreal’s water was a diversion. A ruse to distract everyone while something bigger and more disastrous is being planned and possibly slowly set into motion. Two of Louise’s past books have been about plans to destroy a huge dam and take down the bridge across the St. Lawrence River. This makes me wonder if there isn’t something else involving water that will effect not just one Canadian province but many if not all of them. Possibly even involving the United Staes. And so we wait and wonder. I can’t wait to read what everyone else thinks is going to happen.
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Oh, I like your idea that this was all just a distraction! That hadn’t occurred to me at all, but it makes a lot of sense!
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Did we ever establish how the second mob-style murder (the teacher) in remote Quebec was related to the attack on the water supply? The first was an aunt of one of the monks.
I also don’t think we understand Sebastien yet (he reminds me of a certain Black Wold who is in the news these days). Sebastien seems to have been a joyful young man when he went singing in public with his friends, but he was expelled when the other two were kept on. What did the Seminary know about him that they have kept a secret? Was he a “plant’ all along, or is he supposed to be an idealist who had a worthy cause but fed the black wold and became a terrorist?-
Angie, the teacher’s death was one of my unanswered questions too. As far as I recall Isabelle guessed that he was just a “random” pick to further intimidate Frere Robert. But I’m not so sure it was random.
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In the first notebook, Charles documents his visits to central and northern lakes in Quebec. Gamache thinks “Just for show,” but at the end of the book, Gamache reexamines it and gets a sense of why Lavigne was so desperate to get it. Could it have something to do with perhaps the destruction of water dams that would affect North America’s eastern power grid maybe? Not only would blowing up a dam destroy the power source and put huge parts of the eastern States and Canada in the dark, but the flooding water would destroy all the land downriver from it. (And, as for context and coincidence, I had this idea before the news this week that Ontario’s premier would consider turning off electricity to the US if tariffs are imposed.) The one drawback with my theory is, as Libby points out, Louise has done the blow-up-the-dam plot already. So what is it?
I did have another guess but I think it’s maybe too sinister for Louise to write about. But it would be bigger and disastrous in a different way. The idea came to me after Nancy mentioned copper smelters, arsenic, and Canadian resources and lakes. So, Canada is the second largest exporter of uranium in the world. It’s mined in Saskatchewan (the mines just happen to be named after various lakes). There’s no mining of uranium in Quebec, but there is a nuclear supply chain that runs between Quebec and Ontario. Could the plot that the black wolves are hiding be that they are trying to steal uranium? Is that what Charles discovered?
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So many interesting possibilities here and what an amazing summary of all of the intricacies of TGW and its characters! That alone makes this an great discussion question and an example of how what sounds like a straightforward question is anything but.
Given that this was in Charles’ notebooks, I expect it will have something to do with the water and the water supply. I think Diane may be on to something about diverting water from Canada to the U.S. and not only because of the ridiculous boasts of the incoming U.S. president.
As I learned from reading another of my favorite authors, William Kent Krueger and “Fox Creek,” there was exactly such a plan in the 1950s. It was called the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) and it involved channelling water from Canada and Alaska to the lower 48 states. It was eventually shelved because it was deemed too costly and the ecologic impacts too devastating. But, I can conceive of malign actors and power hungry politicians in this day revisiting this idea, convinced they could overcome any obstacles. And water scarcity is a global issue, one that is increasingly severe and significantly impacts parts of the U.S. If oil can be diverted thousands of miles, surely water can also be diverted.
We may all be totally off base but these are great ideas for a plot, if you ask me. I know I will enjoy reading the details of “the problem” and how Armand, Jean-Guy and Isabelle solve it. I am always amazed at LP’s capacity to create a compelling story.
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I agree with you Jane, these are all excellent ideas and would make for exciting plots. All are very plausible. I love your reference back to WKK and NAWAPA. That would make a lot of sense and I could see LP digging into that research and using it to inform her plot.
Wasn’t there a hint in the book that there was going to be a US presidential election the next year? Could it be something that has a North American scope, so it would not just impact Quebec? Everything is pointing that way. I wondered why there were Russians at the water plant? Gamache’s British friend tells him that bioweapons disappeared in both Russia and the U.S. – after the Soviet Union fell and during a decommissioning of a US lab. So are there other deadly agents out there that could threaten the population again but in a different way? I’m thinking too of Jean-Guy’s question to General Whitehead asking if he thinks the US president could possibly be behind the plot. Whitehead got furious at that but it opened the possibility that if it’s not the president then there’s another possible “black wolf” lurking high up in the US government, just as it was in the Canadian government in this book. I also thought about how several of the “advisors” to Gamache spoke about the terrorists wanting anarchy and people to turn on each other. And Whitehead says that sophisticated terrorists “hit targets that can shatter trust.” He relates it to water security but what other kind of attack would undermine public trust in the same way? Possibly another suspected terrorist attack but on the Saint Lawrence Seaway? That would be big and involve the US and Canada in the story as well as the Great Lakes.
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Of course, the U.S. presidential election was over when TGW was released BUT I must say I sometimes wondered reading it if LP had some sort of premonition or sixth sense here.
I see the possibility that her collaboration with Hillary Clinton on “State of Terror” may well have informed some of LP’s understanding of both the U.S. and its politicians as well as international risks. Still, LP seems eerily prescient to me.
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Yes, I agree with you completely. LP’s friendship with HC gives her access to insights we can only imagine and I think you’ve perhaps identified one of the reasons why TGW strayed away from Three Pines. It’s difficult to ignore global events and issues and we know that LP isn’t afraid to tackle them and include them in her plots.
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I love everyone’s theories and can see them all coming into play in the next book! I thought LP made an interesting observation in the book when she wrote: “Canada might not be the most powerful nation on earth, but power was shifting from weapons to resources. And Canada was resource-rich.” Then she added “They just had to do a much better job of protecting it.” But the question we all seem to be having is, protect it from whom?
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That’s a perfect quote. Very apropos for our reality today as well.
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Oh, I am loving all these theories! So many intriguing possibilities. I haven’t pinned down any particular theory of my own yet. Whatever is going to happen, it was something that Armand saw subconsciously when looking at that second notebook, that eventually made its way to the surface of his conscious, concussed brain. And it was the stuff of nightmares. Did he see a pattern in the marks on the map and the notations that Charles had made? Was it a geographical pattern? A time-line pattern? Something in the wording? An additional code of some sort? It was something that someone who was studying the water sources could discover, but I don’t know enough about that field to know what he might have learned that would connect the dots. As to the black wolves involved, I suspect that Shona is going to find some scary political conspiracy, and I think there will be Mob connections (pretty sure we aren’t done with those people yet), and I think it may have multi-international connections (especially USA, CA, but as Tara pointed out, there were Russian mercenaries (or were they?) at the water plant, too, and bioweapons have disappeared from both Russia and the US). I don’t think all the black wolves in the Surete or Canadian government have been exposed either, so Armand and the team will have to continue to tread carefully there and wherever else they reach out to. I can see this as being as far-reaching a plot as LP wishes to spread it, and am anxious to read the resolution!
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Reading all of your thoughts is enlightening. I really really need to read this book again!!! One thing I thought of in reading all of your posts is that most plots on this level are extremely complicated and difficult to unravel. Have any of you watched “The Diplomat”? The plot of the explosion on the British ship has changed numerous times as more information is forthcoming. The “diplomat”, Kate, changes her thoughts on who is behind it several times and it just gets more and more complicated. I suspect that the plot will change and evolve in the next book in ways we cannot even imagine. LP is brilliant in making us, and the team, go down rabbit holes!
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I think you’re right about that, Nancy. I expect to be led on a merry chase throughout the book!
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I’m also in agreement here! Everyone has suggested so many excellent possibilities. There are so many moving parts and questions to answer still. I’m looking forward to the next adventure, but will read TGW again to look for more clues.
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I haven’t seen “The Diplomat”, but I understand what you’re saying completely. And I think you’re right that there will be more twists and turns in TBW and we might not know what the threat is and who’s behind it until the very end!
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