STEPPING OVER THE BLACK LINE

23 June 2026 

I think I’m now up to date with all of Louise Penny’s Three Pines detective novels. In case you haven’t come across Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, whatever you do don’t watch either of the television series based on Penny’s novels. They are equally terrible. But by all means, read the books. However, you might be better off starting 20 years ago because the character development and the village in which Gamache lives are worth the effort of starting at the beginning.

Her most recent book is called The Black Wolf and it is a direct follow up to The Grey Wolf. What makes this one so fascinating is that it was finished in 2024 and it’s focus is on a possible war between the USA and Canada. Yes, that’s right. Penny wrote it before Trump decided that he wanted Canada as the 51st state. And what's the war going to be about? Water resources. And that's what's happening now with regular news articles about towns running out of water.

Of course it’s fascinating to see her take on how and why such a war might come about but what was even more fascinating was discovering the Haskell Free Library and Opera House. Built in 1904 in a Victorian style it deliberately straddles the border between the USA and Canada. A thick black tape line runs diagonally across the centre of the library to mark the border and with the theatre, the stage and half of the seats are in Canada and the remainder are in the USA. When Trump first introduced travel bans, it was used for family reunions but now the entrances are monitored by both government border agencies. The main entrance is on the American side and in 2025, that government announced that Canadians couldn’t go in without going through US customs. A really irritating procedure if you just wanted to borrow a book! Apparently, Louise Penny has made a major donation to help them put in an entrance on the Canadian side. 


The joy of reading is that you get to find out unexpectedly curiou and interesting stories like this.

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