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Anna Pigeon is a park ranger who has had many adventures at several of the national parks around the United States. In this, the tenth book in the series, she does something different by seemingly settling in at a location where she's been before. In the past few months, she's become the district ranger for the Natchez Trace area in Mississippi. Although career wise this is a promotion, personally it's a trial as Anna is not skilled at managing people. She has 2 rangers on her team. Barth Dinkins is a married black man with whom she feels some kinship developing, although she knows that they will never be deeply attached because there are too many differences between them. Barth is more of an intellectual type ranger who is good at investigating background materials and who is heavily involved in documenting the ownership of several graves in a slave cemetery dating back more than a century. The second ranger, Randy Thigpen, is the thorn in Anna's side. Randy felt that he should have been promoted to the district ranger job. He subtly and not so subtly undermines Anna at every turn. It's all she can do to be civil to him, much less treat him as a valued member of the team. A local man by the name of Doyce Barnette is found in a bed in a historical plantation home that has been restored for tours by the public. He is wearing only his underpants and has an abrasion that looks like he was wearing some kind of harness. The positioning of the body makes it appear that there may have been a sexual sadomasochistic element to the murder. As far as anyone can tell, Doyce was not a homosexual. The incident also tarnishes the image of Doyce's brother, Raymond, who is the local undertaker and running for the job of local sheriff. Raymond stands to inherit a good bit of land because of Doyce's death, so he's still a strong suspect. As Anna proceeds to investigate, she finds herself threatened and almost killed more than once. In one incident, she is investigating an illegal hunting stand and is set upon by 3 poachers who act like they are smelling raw meat. In another, her car is totally demolished by someone trying to murder her. It's difficult to put everything together. There are political and personal motivations, but no overriding piece of the puzzle jumps out to solve the mystery. Barr does an excellent job of building a complex puzzle, one which has the reader jumping to false conclusions several times during the course of the book. In addition to the investigation, Anna is struggling with the fact that she is falling in love with the local sheriff and clergyman, Paul Davidson. She's grown comfortable in her lonely existence since her husband died many years earlier, and it is difficult for her to progress in the relationship. In my opinion, this whole narrative thread was the weakest part of the book. First of all, after 10 books, picturing Anna as a woman mourning in her widow's weeds just wasn't plausible. She's had other relationships in those 10 books, so this seemed a stretch. Secondly, a big deal is made of the fact that Paul is married and so he and Anna are not free to be involved with one another because of the community opinion (particularly since he is a clergyman). However, he has been separated from his wife almost 4 years-I would think that most people would feel that he is entitled to partake in a personal relationship after that amount of time. Be that as it may, Barr excels in character development. Randy Thigpen was a loathsome individual, but she colored that with some sympathetic treatment that allowed the reader to grudgingly accept him, particularly when he tries to turn over a new leaf prior to his upcoming retirement. Raymond Barnette and his mother were evil characters, wonderful to hate. Generally, the law enforcement people were well drawn and likeable, particularly Barth who had more layers to him than were at first evident and the current sheriff, Clintus Jones. In addition, the setting is very well described; but on occasion, the prose is somewhat overblown. The plot unfolds naturally and has several moments of high suspense. It isn't evident to the reader what is going on or why until very near the end of the book. It will be interesting to see in what direction the series will go in the future. Will Anna remain in Mississippi? Will she and Paul form a lasting union? Avid fans will want to read this with an eye to the way that Anna is developing and how Barr is keeping the series fresh, even after 10 books.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, February 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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