Mystery Review: Burn, by Nevada Barr

 

Title: Burn

Author: Nevada Barr

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2010. 378 pages

Source: Library


Publisher's Summary:
Anna Pigeon, a Ranger with the National Park Service, is newly married but on administrative leave from her job as she recovers from the traumas of the past couple of months. While the physical wounds have healed, the emotional ones are still healing. With her new husband back at work, Anna decides to go and stay with an old friend from the Park Service, Geneva, who works as a singer at the New Orleans Jazz NHP. She isn't in town long before she crosses paths with a tenant of Geneva's, a creepy guy named Jordan. She discovers what seems to be an attempt to place a curse on her--a gruesomely killed pigeon marked with runic symbols; and begins to slowly find traces of very dark doings in the heart of post-Katrina New Orleans. Tied up in all of this is Jordan, who is not at all what he appears to be; a fugitive mother accused of killing her husband and daughters in a fire; and faint whispers of unpleasant goings-on in the heart of the slowly recovering city. Now it will take all of Anna's skills learned in the untamed outdoors to navigate the urban jungle in which she finds herself, to uncover the threads that connect these seemingly disparate people, and to rescue the most vulnerable of creatures from the most savage of animals.
 
My Review: 
I have been a fan of Nevada Barr and the Anna Pigeon mysteries for a long time, and there is no question that she is an excellent writer. I am, however, sorry that she has turned from the lighter touch of her early books to delve more and more into the darkest aspects of humanity. I get that murder is never a light-hearted thing. But I'm not sure that I want to see in my head the things that she has put there.

This makes my review a little hard, because part of me wishes I'd never read the book. At the same time, I do think that it is incredibly well-written, and that Barr has managed to weave a story that is compelling and rings true. Even the circumstances of Anna's presence in New Orleans feel right: I have long joked about Anna and a few other heroes of long-running series that I'm amazed that they can take such a beating in each book and keep bouncing back (in spite of what the blurb says, Anna isn't without physical reminders of her recent adventures, though the psychological scars are worse).

It does occur to me that this isn't really a mystery at all, in the classic sense (thus, no doubt, the "novel" designation on the cover). We know who has done the killing, though we don't know just how everything fits together, and in fact murder is not what drives Anna to risk her career and her recovery. It's something a lot worse, and therein lies the rub, since as I mention, I'm not sure I wanted to go there. But it's a testimony to Barr's writing that I couldn't put the book aside completely. Though I stopped two or three times in the first half, both because of other reading commitments and because I didn't want to go there, in the end, I went.




My Recommendation:
Fans of the series will probably be like me and want to keep going. But be aware that this isn't light, isn't the least bit cozy, and will take you places you may not want to go. Fans of the gritty thriller will be more at home.

FTC Disclosure: I checked Burn out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  

L: Mt. Lassen

True confessions: I wrote this review last year, and used it for my "F" post in the 2014 A to Z Challenge. So sue me! She's still a great writer and the series is worth checking out. As is Mt. Lassen--see photos at end of post!

Title:  Firestorm
Author: Nevada Barr
Publisher: Orig. published Putnam Adult, 307 pages, 1996.
Source:  Public library (ebook)

Summary:
Ranger Anna Pigeon is on loan from Mesa Verde to fight wildfire near Mt. Lassen in California.  But as the fire camp is closing down, a carry-out operation for an injured firefighter is brought to a shocking end.  The fire suddenly blows up and the group is forced to deploy their last-ditch fire shelters.  When the flames pass, one shelter contains a dead man--with the knife still in his ribs.  Before they can be evacuated, snow closes the approaches to the camp.  It's up to Anna, with some long-distance help from her sort of love interest, Frederick Stanton of the FBI, to find out who killed the man, and why.

Review:
The Anna Pigeon novels are one part police procedural (Anna is in law enforcement, for the Park Service), one part exercise for the little grey cells, and one part wild adventure.  In Firestorm, Anna struggles to keep the grey cells working without food or sleep as she is faced with a classic locked-door mystery.  She's locked in the room with the suspects and the corpse, and survival involves food and fire as well as not tipping off the unknown killer.

Barr builds the tension well, and refuses to give us the obvious criminals just as she refuses to give us (or Anna and Frederick) an easy love story.  Anna peels away layer after layer of the dead man's life, until most readers would be happy to join in sticking the knife in the man's ribs.  But only one person has done it, and though in retrospect there are clues, the answer still comes as a shock--just the way it should.  And while we are sure Anna will be glad to see Stanton, we can be pretty sure that they won't ride off into the sunset together.  She has a lot of baggage, and ends this book with still more.

Barr's mysteries are a bit too gritty to be cozy, but they share some important features with cozies.  Notably, the characters are easy to identify with, and the settings are vital.  In fact, this was the first Anna Pigeon novel I read (when it first came out), because it was set in my husband's local park.  The threats to the Parks that Pigeon uncovers lend a special importance to the investigations she undertakes for us.

Recommendation:
If you like the National Parks and you like mysteries, and aren't afraid of a bit of gore and some mildly foul language, Nevada Barr and Anna Pigeon are for you.  And this book, though not the first in the series, is as good a place as any to start, and better than some.

Full Disclosure: I borrowed  Firestorm  from my public (digital) library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

 ###

Mt. Lassen is the southern-most of the Cascade volcanoes (it is not part of the Sierra Nevada, which is primarily created by uplift, but part of the Cascades, which are volcanic). It is 10,457', and last erupted from 1914-17, making it the second most-recently-active of the Cascade volcanoes (after St. Helens, which erupted in 1980).
 
And now for the photos. These are from a  3-day backpack we did at Butte and Snag lakes on the east side of the Park in 2011.

Lassen in August in a year with decent snow. This year, I'm pretty sure the mountain has less snow than this right now, in April.

Lassen peering from behind the Cinder Cone responsible for the lava field that separates Butte and Snag lakes.

Yes, this is the background for this blog page! Shot from the top of the Cinder Cone looking down to Snag Lake.

There have been fires in that area, not just in Nevada Barr's fiction but in reality. Afterwards, you get amazing wildflowers.

 

Last light on the volcano.

 

F is for Firestorm, by Nevada Barr

 

 For the letter F, some wild fire in the wilderness, with a murder shown in to remind us that people are wild animals too.

Title:  Firestorm
Author: Nevada Barr
Publisher: Orig. published Putnam Adult, 307 pages, 1996.
Source:  Public library (ebook)

Summary:
Ranger Anna Pigeon is on loan from Mesa Verde to fight wildfire near Mt. Lassen in California.  But as the fire camp is closing down, a carry-out operation for an injured firefighter is brought to a shocking end.  The fire suddenly blows up and the group is forced to deploy their last-ditch fire shelters.  When the flames pass, one shelter contains a dead man--with the knife still in his ribs.  Before they can be evacuated, snow closes the approaches to the camp.  It's up to Anna, with some long-distance help from her sort of love interest, Frederick Stanton of the FBI, to find out who killed the man, and why.

Review:
The Anna Pigeon novels are one part police procedural (Anna is in law enforcement, for the Park Service), one part exercise for the little grey cells, and one part wild adventure.  In Firestorm, Anna struggles to keep the grey cells working without food or sleep as she is faced with a classic locked-door mystery.  She's locked in the room with the suspects and the corpse, and survival involves food and fire as well as not tipping off the unknown killer.

Barr builds the tension well, and refuses to give us the obvious criminals just as she refuses to give us (or Anna and Frederick) an easy love story.  Anna peels away layer after layer of the dead man's life, until most readers would be happy to join in sticking the knife in the man's ribs.  But only one person has done it, and though in retrospect there are clues, the answer still comes as a shock--just the way it should.  And while we are sure Anna will be glad to see Stanton, we can be pretty sure that they won't ride off into the sunset together.  She has a lot of baggage, and ends this book with still more.

Barr's mysteries are a bit too gritty to be cozy, but they share some important features with cozies.  Notably, the characters are easy to identify with, and the settings are vital.  In fact, this was the first Anna Pigeon novel I read (when it first came out), because it was set in my husband's local park.  The threats to the Parks that Pigeon uncovers lend a special importance to the investigations she undertakes for us.

Recommendation:
If you like the National Parks and you like mysteries, and aren't afraid of a bit of gore and some mildly foul language, Nevada Barr and Anna Pigeon are for you.  And this book, though not the first in the series, is as good a place as any to start, and better than some.

Full Disclosure: I borrowed  Firestorm  from my public (digital) library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."