Former park ranger Nevada Barr is currently one of my favorite mystery writers. I've enjoyed most of her books because of her characterizations, inventive plots, and descriptive writing. It helps that her stories are set in beautiful places. I've enjoyed reading about places I've been as well as places I can only imagine. Her writing is descriptive enough that I decided very early on that I wouldn't read her book set in Carlsbad Caverns. Even after visiting the caves and feeling comfortable with the paved paths, electric lights, underground snack bar, and elevator, I knew I wouldn't make it through the adventures Barr would set her literary alter ego to.
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Barr's latest book is set in Yosemite. Its title is High Country. Barr's protagonist is Anna Pigeon, most recently promoted to chief ranger at Natchez Trace National Park. In the new book, Pigeon goes undercover as a waitress in a Yosemite lodge helping figure out what happened to four missing people. In the fictional wake of a real life kidnapping and murder, the plot works.
Pigeon is a circumspect secret agent, even if everyone at the lodge recognizes her as under cover. They all think she's a company fink evaluating their job performances. The story plays well to my ears attuned to ridiculous plot twists. There are only a couple implausibilities. Pigeon's escapes from murderous villains play out realistically. (This is the character who survived a murder by alligator attempt a few books ago.)
High Country was another enjoyable escape. If you haven't read any of Barr's books, I recommend beginning with Firestorm or Hunting Season or this book.
A bonus with this book was a quote to share. I don't usually find notable thoughts in books like this, but here's one from Nevada Barr:
"...the senses [can] divine information too delicate for the essentially crude and limited tool of language to express, information which animal brains had easily made sense of before humans learned to speak and so reduce all life to words. Now, but for a lucky or insane few, that subliminal input served only to raise the hairs on the back of the neck, leave hollow pits in stomachs and unnamable dread in minds." |
Write Tell a little bit of the world what you think.
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By Ken Wedding. 08.19.02 Updated 08.16.04.
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