The following items are available at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
Adult Fiction
“A Nearly Normal Family,” by M.T. Edvardsson
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M.T. Edvardsson’s “A Nearly Normal Family” is a legal thriller that forces the reader to consider: How far would you go to protect the ones you love? In this twisting narrative of love and murder, a horrific crime makes a seemingly normal family question everything they thought they knew about their life — and one another. Stella Sandell, 18 years old, stands accused of the murder of a man almost 15 years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Stella’s pastor father and criminal defense attorney mother find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in a three-part structure, “A Nearly Normal Family” asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?
Adult Nonfiction
“A Guest of the Reich: The Story of American Heiress Gertrude Legendre’s Dramatic Captivity and Escape from Nazi Germany,” by Peter Finn
Gertrude Legendre was a big-game hunter from a wealthy industrial family who lived a charmed life in Jazz Age America. Her adventurous spirit made her the inspiration for the Broadway play “Holiday,” which became a film starring Katharine Hepburn. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Legendre, by then married and a mother of two, joined the OSS, the wartime spy organization that preceded the CIA. First in Washington and then in London, some of the most closely held United States government secrets passed through her hands. Author Peter Finn tells the story of how in 1944, while on leave in liberated Paris, Legendre was captured by the Germans after accidentally crossing the front lines. Subjected to repeated interrogations, including by the Gestapo, Legendre entered a daring game of lies with her captors. The Nazis treated her as a “special prisoner” of the SS and moved her from city to city throughout Germany, where she witnessed the collapse of Hitler’s Reich as no other American did. After six months in captivity, Legendre escaped into Switzerland. “A Guest of the Reich” is an account of a little-known chapter in the history of World War II, as well as a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman.
