Well, we almost got through Thanksgiving without the onset of winter. It is a little depressing to realize that we are still in the midst of a pandemic and restrictions. Our library does not require visitors to be vaccinated but we are limited to 15 people in the library at a time. Masks are mandatory and we ask you to keep 2 metre spacing between patrons.
With these restrictions we cannot offer any in-library programs and sadly that includes Story Time. Kelly Nutbrown is going into the Kindergarten classroom and the preschool to do Story Time until we are able to offer it in the library.
We are open 4 days a week Monday-Thursday (9-3, 9-7:30 Wednesdays). It is quieter in the library than usual but books are still flying off the shelves. We are lucky that the Marigold online reservation system is so easy and fast. There are lots of new books for adults and children, as well as new audio books in our library and of course you have access to material from so many libraries. tracpac.ab.ca
The colder weather does provide a great excuse to curl up in your favourite chair, with your favourite bevy and get stuck into a book. Mysteries are very popular and it is hard to top anything by Scottish writer Peter May. His latest book is The Night Gate and it’s a gem.
In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree. A week later a famous art critic is viciously murdered in a nearby house. The deaths occurred more than 70 years apart.
Forensics expert Enzo McLeod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of
the latter. Two extraordinary narratives are set in train – one historical, unfolding in the treacherous wartime years of occupied France, the other contemporary, set in the fall of 2020 as France re-enters COVID lockdown.
Enzo’s investigations reveal an unexpected link between the murders – the Mona Lisa. Tasked by the exiled Charles De Gaulle to keep the world’s most famous painting out of Nazi hands after the fall of France in1940, 28-year old Georgette Pignal finds herself swept along by the tide of history. Following in the wake of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as it is moved from chateau to chateau, she finds herself just one step ahead of two German art experts sent to steal it for rival patrons – Hitler and Goering.
In this, May’s latest novel, he shows why he is one of the great contemporary writers of crime fiction – and The Night Gate is available from the Millarville Library!
