As her legions of loyal readers know, Nevada Barr is not a stripper nor a Las Vegas lawyer; she's a former actress and National Park Service ranger who writes excellent mysteries set in the wilderness. Her alter ego, ranger Anna Pigeon, is once again called upon to be mentally and physically astute--this time on Cumberland Island, off the Georgia coast, where the ghosts of the millionaires who used to live there are being added to by a determined killer. As usual, Barr is best at creating believable scenes of action in a setting that is beautifully detailed but never romanticized. Past Barr books in paperback: Firestorm, Ill Wind, A Superior Death, Track of the Cat.


From School Library Journal
YA. Fans 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, VACopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
Despite the many plot complications that claim Anna's attention in this intricate mystery, Ms. Barr makes sure that she also has eyes for the eerie beauty of her isolated surroundings. No less than her heroine, who swims alone and naked under a full moon, the author seems to have immersed herself in everything strange and lovely about this place.


From Booklist
Barr's tough, likable park ranger heroine, Anna Pigeon, is back in another high-spirited outdoors adventure/mystery. Sent to isolated Cumberland Island National Seashore off the coast of Georgia on summer fire patrol, Anna is bored despite the natural beauty of the area. Then the seashore's local ranger and his pilot are killed when their small plane crashes on the island. When Anna and her crew investigate, they find the plane was sabotaged. Anna develops a list of possible suspects, including some of her own crew. When the killer is finally revealed, even the usually unflappable Anna is shocked by the desperate cold-bloodedness of the crime. Anna's no-nonsense view of life, unorthodox career, strong opinions, secret vulnerability, and soft heart make her unique among today's current crop of female sleuths. Readers like Anna, and they like Barr's engaging mysteries, which are as entertaining and thought provoking as they are fun to read. Emily Melton


From Kirkus Reviews
If you've been waiting for Park Services ranger Anna Pigeon to get a posting on the East Coast, you'll be happy to know that she's unofficially moonlighting as midwife to some endangered loggerhead turtles while she's working for a presuppression fire crew in Georgia's Cumberland Island National Seashore. But the fire that's started by the crash of a Beechcraft airplane is a routine problem compared to the death of the two men who were aboard the plane: Slattery Hammond, who was on freelance drug patrol, and district ranger Todd Belfore, who leaves behind a very pregnant wife and a shorthanded park staff to deal with a dozen riddles. Why did Slattery follow Todd from the wide-open spaces of the North Cascades to the shallows of Cumberland? Why was Tabby Belfore afraid her husband would leave her? Why did somebody knock out Anna as she searched Slattery's place, and use an inoffensive Austrian camper's leg for target practice? What were a pair of plastic sandwich bags doing floating inside the Beechcraft's fuel tank? Anna wishes her FBI lover Frederick Stanton were with her to help piece together this puzzle. But he won't even answer his phone in Chicago, because he's in New York, falling in love with Anna's sister Molly. Anna's fifth isn't as baffling or dramatically urgent as the remarkable Firestorm (1996), but it is as poetically written and exquisitely clued as any of the others. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.



"Nevada Barr's mysteries keep getting better and better."



"A nifty thriller . . . Barr's one heckuva writer . . . Her tales read like Patricia Cronwell exploring the great outdoors."



"Barr Is A Splendid Storyteller."


Book Description
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.


About the Author
Navada Barr is the award-winning author of seven Anna Pigeon mysteries: Track of the Cat, A Superior Death, III Wind, Firestorm, Endangered Species, Blind Descent, and Liberty Falling. She lives in Mississippi and was most recent a ranger on the Natchez Trace Parkway

ANNOTATION

Park ranger Anna Pigeon investigates the crash of the drug-interdiction plane on an isolated Georgia island in Nevada Barr's spectacular new mystery. Was it an accident or sabotage that downed the plane, killing both the pilot and his passenger? Pressed into service, it's up to Anna and her crew to solve the mystery. 320 pp. 40,000 print.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Was the crash of the drug interdiction plane on an iolated Georgia island an accident - or sabotage? Park ranger Anna Pigeon investigates. Though the "experts" are called in to evaluate the crash, Anna can't let the investigation rest solely in their hands. Her inquiry causes her to stumble into shady dealings that question the integrity - and honor - of her own crew.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

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.)

School Library Journal

YA--Fans 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

Kirkus Reviews

If you've been waiting for Park Services ranger Anna Pigeon to get a posting on the East Coast, you'll be happy to know that she's unofficially moonlighting as midwife to some endangered loggerhead turtles while she's working for a presuppression fire crew in Georgia's Cumberland Island National Seashore. But the fire that's started by the crash of a Beechcraft airplane is a routine problem compared to the death of the two men who were aboard the plane: Slattery Hammond, who was on freelance drug patrol, and district ranger Todd Belfore, who leaves behind a very pregnant wife and a shorthanded park staff to deal with a dozen riddles. Why did Slattery follow Todd from the wide-open spaces of the North Cascades to the shallows of Cumberland? Why was Tabby Belfore afraid her husband would leave her? Why did somebody knock out Anna as she searched Slattery's place, and use an inoffensive Austrian camper's leg for target practice? What were a pair of plastic sandwich bags doing floating inside the Beechcraft's fuel tank? Anna wishes her FBI lover Frederick Stanton were with her to help piece together this puzzle. But he won't even answer his phone in Chicago, because he's in New York, falling in love with Anna's sister Molly.

Anna's fifth isn't as baffling or dramatically urgent as the remarkable Firestorm (1996), but it is as poetically written and exquisitely clued as any of the others.