Reasons why Danger At the Gates is a terrific choice for a Book Group:
- All four of the Alice Ott mysteries are page-turners! Fast-paced adventure keeps the reader engaged, entertained, and staying up past bed-time.
- Alice Ott, amateur sleuth, is a compelling role model – elderly but feisty, she is a wizard on line; she follows the call of her conscience and her taste for adventure.
- Throughout the Alice Ott mysteries, the geography changes. The reader enjoys the comfort of rural towns in New England, and then cycles through into the dark confines of a laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Maryland. Alice takes her readers from the farmland of rural New England overshadowed by the menacing chill of a looming nuclear power plant, into the intricate secrets of a sunny nursing home, the underground transport of undocumented immigrants to the Canadian border, and into the close confinement of those unsafe in their own homes.
- While learning about the very real dangers in our contemporary world, the humor of the characters and the quirky twists of the stories will keep readers laughing out loud.
- Alice Ott is someone you will want to keep hearing from: regular blogs by Alice, and previews of the fifth book in the Alice Ott trilogy, ensure that this is a character who isn’t going to disappear!
Sample questions for book group discussion:
- How does Alice Ott challenge stereotypes about older people? Do you know anyone like Alice Ott?
- What stays with you as you read about Alice and her friends? Have you experienced friendships that led you to be bolder and take more risks than usual?
- What are your responses to the complex romance of Alice Ott and her long-lost lover Gerard? How do you feel about Alice’s struggle to protect her relationship with Gerard while staying true to her commitments as a perennial activist?
- Do you identity with any of the characters in the book?
- How do you see yourself as a “concerned citizen’?
- What issues do you think Alice Ott is likely to take on in the future?