Check this out, at the library this week

Tax season has started! The library has received 2020 tax forms, available while supplies last, first come first served, one copy per person. We have the 1040 and 1040-SR instruction booklet and forms with schedules 1-3 and schedule Lep-request for change in language preference. If you are looking for a different form they can usually be found at the IRS website at https://www.irs.gov/ by searching on their site. Any additional forms that we print out from the IRS website will be charged printing rates. You can come by the circulation desk to request a copy.

This week's reviews include non-fiction, fiction and mystery titles.

“Three Days at the Brink” (940.53 BAI B) by Bret Baier with Catherine Whitney centers on November 1943: The Nazis and their Axis allies controlled nearly the entire European continent. Japan dominated the Pacific. Allied successes at Sicily and Guadalcanal had gained them modest ground but at an extraordinary cost. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Red Army had been bled white. That same month a daring gambit was hatched that would alter everything. The “Big Three,” Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, secretly met for the first time to chart a strategy for defeating Adolf Hitler.

Over three days in Tehran, Iran, this trio, strange bedfellows united by their mutual responsibility as heads of the Allied powers, made essential decisions that would direct the final years of the war and its aftermath. Meanwhile, looming over the covert meeting was the possible threat of a Nazi assassination plot, code-named Operation Long Jump. Before they left Tehran, the three leaders agreed to open a second front in the West, spearheaded by Operation Overload and the Dday invasion of France at Normandy the following June. They also discussed what might come after the war, including dividing Germany and establishing the United Nations, plans that laid the groundwork for the postwar world order and the Cold War. Bret Baier's new epic history, “Three Days at the Brink,” centers on these crucial days in Tehran, the ancient Persian city on the edge of the desert. Baier makes clear the importance of Roosevelt, who stood apart as the sole leader of a democracy, recognizing him as the lead strategist for the globe's future, the one man who could ultimately allow or deny the others their place in history. With new details discovered in rarely seen transcripts, oral histories, and declassified State Department and presidential documents from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Baier illuminates the complex character of Roosevelt, revealing a man who grew into his role and accepted the greatest challenge any American president since Lincoln had faced.

There was a time when Melanie's dysfunctional family was out of sight and mind in “The Girl On Legare Street” (Series BK#2) (F WHI K) by Karen White, and her only worries were her monthly sales figures, what shade of beige to paint her lowmaintenance condo, and whether she was ready to make a charming journalist Jack Trenholm a permanent fixture in her life. Those days are over. After receiving a deadly premonition, Melanie's mother, who deserted her more than thirty years ago suddenly returns to Charleston to protect her.

But all Ginnette Prioleau Middleton does is remind Melanie of how little they

have in common-except for their ability to communicate with ghosts.

And now Ginnette is moving into their ancestral home on Legare Street, and she needs Melanie’s advice on restoring it and her sixth sense to talk to the dead who inhabit it.

But Ginnette’s return has awakened a dark spirit whose strength has been growing for decades-and who is ready for revenge. With Jack’s help, Melanie and her mother must find a way to work together to fight the malevolent presence and save what’s left of their family.

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together in “The Hunting Party” (F FOL L) by Lucy Foley. It is a tradition they began as students ten years ago.

For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands, the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead. The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps. Now one of them is dead and another of them did it. Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?

When Detective Harriet Blue loses the only person in the world who mattered to her, she goes on the hunt in “Liar Liar” (M PAT J) by James Patterson and Candice Fox. She’s hell-bent on bringing down her brother’s murderer, Regan Banks, a man who has already taken many lives. But Regan has gone to ground. Until the day Harry’s phone rings. It’s him. “Catch me if you can,” he tells her. In the space of a week, Harry has committed theft and fraud, resisted arrest, assaulted a police officer, and is considered a dangerous fugitive from the law. She’ll do anything to find this killing machine fast, even if the cost is her own life.

"Keep reading. It’s one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have." - Lloyd Alexander

Howard County Library is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, for Grab & Go access to the library. Customers have 30 minutes to browse the shelves, checkout items, make copies and send a fax, an appointment is still required to use a computer. Please visit our website at http://howard-county.ploud.net and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ Howardcolibrary for more information. You may reach us at 432-264-2260 and our fax number is 432-264-2263.