Available:*
Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33607002904756 | Adult Fiction | BARR | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
In the midst of a dangerously dry season, national park ranger Anna Pigeon has been posted to Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast for a monotonous, twenty-one day fire watch. But her boredom is short-lived, for this remote and marshy place is breeding ground for more than just the imperiled Loggerhead turtle; it also spawns eccentricity and secrets, greed, suspicion. . .and murder.A small plane crashes into the palmetto thickets nearby. Anna and her crew arrive in time to control the blaze, but too late to save pilot and his passenger, Cumberland's sole law enforcement ranger. When the cause of the "accident" is determined to be sabotage, Anna becomes entangled in an investigation that threatens to upset the very delicate balance of this fragile ecological preserve. For she is precariously close to exposing dark, clandestine crimes both old and new that someone has worked very diligently to conceal. . .and which make Anna Pigeon the most endangered creature on the island.
Author Notes
Nevada Barr was born on March 1, 1952. She is the author of a series of mysteries involving national parks. She draws on her own experience as a National Park Service ranger to thrill readers with the majesty of nature. Anna Pigeon, the heroine of such novels as A Superior Death and Endangered Species, is a rough-and-tough ranger who left the wilds of New York for the great outdoors, and is modeled after Barr.
Barr began writing in 1978, garnering national attention with the publication in 1993 of Track of the Cat, which won both the Agatha and Anthony awards for Best First Mystery Novel. Her novels are known for breathtaking descriptions of nature, diverse settings, and a no-nonsense heroine. She also provides frequently unflattering portrayals of the National Park Service.
Her works include 13 1/2, Winterstudy, Borderline, Burn, The Rope and Destroyer Angel.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
YAFans of park ranger Anna Pigeon have followed her from Lake Superior to Mesa Verde; now she takes them to Cumberland Island, Georgia. Part of a fire crew, Anna and her partner are first to discover the wreckage of a burning airplane, and Anna suspects sabotage. Back in civilization, her beau, Frederick, meets her sister, Molly, and discovers that she has all of Anna's good qualities, plus a penchant for city life that he shares, in contrast to Anna's love for the wilderness. The setting is an additional character as the island's lush vegetation, hot and humid weather, and abundance of ticks and chiggers add to and twist the plot. Remnants of once-grand homes of the wealthy dot the island, adding to the stench of decay and the vision of a dying Southern way of life. There is always one scene in Barr's books that remains forever etched in memory; this time it is when Anna hides in an old hog sty and becomes trapped when two of her suspects burn quantities of a marijuana crop. Unable to leave, she pays dearly for the unwanted high she receives. Even in tense situations, humor is apparent in the writing, which makes the reading enjoyable and the suspense more palatable.Pam Spencer, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Barr possesses that rare combination of talents: she can write a beautiful sentence and create a first-rate mystery. In this fifth in the series (Firestorm, 1996), National Park Service Ranger Anna Pigeon is on temporary assignment at drought-ridden Cumberland Island National Seashore off the Georgia coast, on presuppression fire duty. Patrols are interrupted by an airplane crash that kills pilot Slattery Hammond, who was conducting drug-interdiction flights, and Todd Belfore, Cumberland district ranger. When foul play is suggested, investigators wonder if the murderer was after Hammond, Belfore or Cumberland's chief ranger, Norman Hull, whom Belfore replaced in the plane at the last minute. Barr, who is a former Park Service Ranger, evokes the minimally developed island's shimmering beauty while spinning an absorbing tale of danger and deceit that embraces a realistic description of conservation work and a diverse, engaging cast. An affecting subplot is developed when Anna's lover, FBI agent Frederick Stanton, and her psychiatrist sister, Molly, meet. A refreshing change from the brash, wisecracking order of female PIs, Barr's thoughtful and sensitive heroine ("This murder was... intricate, slow-moving, relationships unclear, each aspect draped or veiled by something else," she observes midway through the investigation) rings true on every page. Readers Digest Condensed Book. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved