Nevada BarrThe Track of the CatChristina says:
Hiking through the Guadalupe National Park in Texas park ranger Anna Pigeon finds the dead body of her colleague Sheila Drury. It looks like the young woman fell victim to a mountain lion, or at least that is an explanation Anna's superiors favor. The don't want to listen to Anna's objections and have a lioness killed to quiet the fears of the ranchers whose properties share borders with the park and who are worried about their livestock. Anna isn't placated that easily. Even if she has to look for the killer among the people she closely works with and would like to count as her friends. She soon realizes how dangerous that is. A villain who wants to get rid of a pesky investigator can easily do so in the west Texan desert. Anna Pigeon fled from the big city jungle of New York after the murder of her husband, and Nevada Barr lets the reader accompany her to the quiet of the desert. She is one of those authors who know the occupation of her protagonist from personal experience, being a ranger in a National Park in Mississippi. She manages to give us a glimpse of the savage beauty of the west Texan landscape and introduces us to the intricacies of the administration of a National Park. Political schemes are the daily bread and preservation of the environment is only one of the concerns that want to be addressed. Barr never gives in to the temptation to paint everything in black and white. This is the setting for the mystery. The story is interesting and invites you to guess along with Anna Pigeon who the killer is. Anna – weary of what we call civilization – is a heroine with an edge and an excellent guide to the park. The rest of the characters are not very remarkable, but as suspects to be checked out and cleared one by one they do well enough. The only exception was Molly, Anna's sister and long-distance call therapist. Avon Mystery
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Last changes: 17-03-03 Copyright 2000 Christina Gross & Monika Hübner |
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