February 20, 2022 AGAINST THE WIND

 

What's with the wind? It's making THIS winter unbearable. Seriously. I can handle running when it's 15-20 degrees--BUT--when the wind makes it feel like 5--I get a little cranky. ANY wind--this time of year--is too much wind as far as I'm concerned. I've had to really bundle up this winter--it been a 2 pair of pants kind of year. I don't remember it EVER being this cold and windy. It's all I can do to go out for a run--then spend the rest of the day trying to warm up. I actually wish I could hibernate til spring but I'm not a bear. Maybe I'm just getting older and the cold weather is affecting me more. UGH.  I finally understand why SO many people head SOUTH for the winter. This weather SUCKS. I can't stand it. I got the February Blues--hoping March will be a little kinder. If you're in a purple funk this February then maybe Louise Penny's newest installment of the Gamache series, The Madness of Crowds, will help perk you up. In this book, number 17, Chief Inspector Gamache returns to his home in  Three Pines, a tiny Quebec village, after the pandemic.  Gamache is called upon to provide security for a Statistics Professor named Abigail Robinson who is giving a lecture at a nearby university. Although this seems like a strange request for the head of police, Gamache agrees to provide security but has mixed feelings when he finds out what the lecture is about. Professor Robinson is using pandemic data to further her agenda--a government policy accepting euthanasia for the elderly, sick and even deformed. When a murder is committed after the lecture, Gamache, his second in command Jean-Guy Beauvoir and team investigate the crime. I found this novel interesting, especially, because Robinson manipulates data to further her agenda. Blurring the line between fact and fiction and frighteningly enough--the people--the madness of the crowds--who believed in her message. This mystery is about 448 pages or a 5 mile run that is not only a good story, but a timely one that deals with social issues that are relevant today.