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Anna Pigeon #5
Endangered Species
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 imperilled 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.
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.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
430 people are currently reading
1708 people want to read
About the author
Nevada Barr
66 books2,305 followersNevada Barr is a mystery fiction author, known for her "Anna Pigeon" series of mysteries, set in National Parks in the United States. Barr has won an Agatha Award for best first novel for Track of the Cat.
Barr was named after the state of her birth. She grew up in Johnstonville, California. She finished college at the University of California, Irvine. Originally, Barr started to pursue a career in theatre, but decided to be a park ranger. In 1984 she published her first novel, Bittersweet, a bleak lesbian historical novel set in the days of the Western frontier.
While working in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Barr created the Anna Pigeon series. Pigeon is a law enforcement officer with the United States National Park Service. Each book in the series takes place in a different National Park, where Pigeon solves a murder mystery, often related to natural resource issues. She is a satirical, witty woman whose icy exterior is broken down in each book by a hunky male to whom she is attracted (such as Rogelio).
Currently, Ms. Barr lives in New Orleans, LA.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/nevada...
Barr was named after the state of her birth. She grew up in Johnstonville, California. She finished college at the University of California, Irvine. Originally, Barr started to pursue a career in theatre, but decided to be a park ranger. In 1984 she published her first novel, Bittersweet, a bleak lesbian historical novel set in the days of the Western frontier.
While working in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Barr created the Anna Pigeon series. Pigeon is a law enforcement officer with the United States National Park Service. Each book in the series takes place in a different National Park, where Pigeon solves a murder mystery, often related to natural resource issues. She is a satirical, witty woman whose icy exterior is broken down in each book by a hunky male to whom she is attracted (such as Rogelio).
Currently, Ms. Barr lives in New Orleans, LA.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/nevada...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 457 reviews
May 22, 2024
Park Ranger Anna Pigeon has been sent to Cumberland Island, Georgia as part of a firefighting team. I love this series because I wind up learning so much about the ecology of each park Anna is posted in, as well as the nitty gritty of life as a park ranger. In this book, we have sea turtles! And baby alligators! So interesting. We also have a deadly plane crash and resulting fire, and as Anna and her team are assigned to figure out what may have gone wrong, they may have discovered foul play. I loved the characters, Anna working out the mystery, and also the interesting B-mystery in this one with Anna’s sister Molly and a stalker, that Frederick is in NYC to help with.
July 3, 2019
Having read numerous books in Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon series, I thought it would be fun to backtrack and read one that I’d missed: number five, Endangered Species . I was right; it was fun! It had been such a long time since I had read anything in this series, so going back to the late 90s version of Anna Pigeon was a treat.
In each book of the series, Anna is stationed at a different National Park. In this case, she is part of the firefighting crew at Georgia’s Cumberland National Park. Without much happening in the way of fire activity, whatever will Anna do? The book starts out with a description of her assisting a researcher in hauling a female loggerhead turtle to the beach so she can lay her eggs. As it turns out, the loggerhead isn’t the only creature in this story who is endangered.
It just wouldn’t be an Anna Pigeon park experience without danger, murder, and more danger. When there finally is a fire, it turns out to be the result of a plane crash. A private plane has gone down, killing the pilot and his passenger. The investigation soon proves it to be sabotage. Naturally, Anna has hunches and follows them to the max.
When she has down time, she waits in the queue to use the telephone, attempting to contact her two closest loved ones in the outside world. Her sister Molly is a psychiatrist in New York. Her current significant other, Frederick Stanton, is an FBI agent living in Chicago. Anna and Frederick have talked about making their relationship more permanent, but he doesn’t do wilderness and she doesn’t go much for big city living. Hmmm. How will this end? Then Molly has some death threats and Anna mentions this to Frederick. Molly and Frederick meet. Will this be just business, or will the lure of the New York sister cause Frederick to fly the coop?
I loved the characters. As a female, Anna was in the minority in a man’s world. There is plenty of humor here. One of my favorites:
Anna was driving, Rick riding shotgun. For the past twenty minutes he’d been working himself into a lather over abortion rights. Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy were his much-quoted experts on the subject. Anna was attempting a Zen-like state and failing miserably. The
heat, the boredom, and Rick were a combination that would have gotten Gandhi’s loincloth in a bundle.
I also chuckled every time Dijon, who seemed to be the crew’s “token black man”, started to curse because he fell all over himself trying to clean up his language for Anna’s sake.
All fun aside, there was a double murder to solve, and Anna was quite persistent in that endeavor. I had a good idea right from the start, but I had no clue as to the motive. She had plenty of help at the end, just in the nick of time too.
I always knew I enjoyed this series a lot. Now I remember why. I enjoy visiting the various parks around the country, and it’s always an adventure going along with Anna as she gets herself in and out of trouble. I think there are a few more books that I have missed along the way, so I’ll be looking for those in the not-too-distant future.
4 stars
April 11, 2014
The Anna Pigeon books are comfort food. I always enjoy entering Anna's life and finding out about which National Park she will be working at. In this story she is in Cumberland Island Park in Georgia as a Fire fighter, there with other Park Service employees just in case. Also in the mix are the Loggerhead turtles, coming ashore during their annual migration to lay their eggs and as well, a plane crash and possible murder. The story meanders through the mystery, Anna is lovely as ever. I also liked the bits involving Frederick, her FBI friend in Chicago, and her sister in New York who is receiving threatening letters and phone calls. All in all, I enjoyed very much and look forward to my next Anna Pigeon mystery, Blind Descent, set in Carlsbad Caverns, NM.
May 8, 2019
Fifth in the Anna Pigeon thriller mystery series and revolving around Anna, National Park Service employee. This story takes place on Cumberland Island in Georgia.
My Take
It's something of a slow, easy read in between action-packed scenes — nothing like a few gunshots and hostage taking to liven things up, *grin*, — as Anna slips in behind the scenes to investigate a double murder.
Stanton's consultation with Molly over those death threats proves interesting — I'll need to read Blind Descent to see how that romance progresses(??). As for Anna's side of the story, motives are running amuck, and we experience them through Anna's perspective in third person protagonist point-of-view.
That Alice is an interesting character. She comes off tough but has a practical side with a sense of humor. She certainly takes Anna's suspicions well.
Her fellow crew members have the usual interactions with Anna — all-boy with their bragging and joking. Anna takes it all as it's meant. There is a bit of anti-woman in here, as Anna is competing with the "boys", who are put out that they didn't get in on the action.
Omigod. Anna doesn't have to worry about Zach's ashes anymore. It's horrifying, yet funny in a gruesome way.
Nope, I gotta disagree with Candice about the Ford Probe her dad was lusting after. It may not look like a Mustang or Lamborghini, but it does drive like a sports car. I had two of 'em, and I do love to drive.
The Story
It was supposed to be a cushy, almost vacation-like posting. But then a plane crashes, and Anna and her crew are too late to save the pilot and his passenger.
When the cause turns out to be sabotage, Anna goes on her own crusade behind the scenes, turning up too many secrets that will endanger Anna.
She's not the only one in danger, though. Her sister, Molly, is getting her own death threats, and Frederick offers to help.
The Characters
Forty-two-year-old Anna Pigeon is a National Park Service GS-9 field ranger with EMT skills, a.k.a., Beth Cuvelier, ahem, who moves from park to park and has issues with alcohol. This time she came from Mesa Verde in Colorado. Piedmont is her orange tiger cat. Dr Molly Pigeon, a psychiatrist in New York City, is Anna's sister with her own addiction, cigarettes. Zach had been the love of Anna's life. She's still carrying his ashes from park to park.
Frederick Stanton, a Chicago-based FBI agent who has worked with Anna on a couple of homicides, is dating her. Danny and Taters are his pet budgerigars. Candice is his daughter.
Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia, is...
...a cushy temporary gig for NPS employees to keep a fire watch. Todd Belfore, the district ranger and the only law enforcement ranger on Cumberland, and Tabby, Todd's pregnant wife, live at Plum Orchard, one of the semi-derelict mansions.
Norman Hull is the Cumberland chief ranger. Renee is his secretary. Cheryl is his wife, and Ellen is their ne'er-do-well daughter. The Southeast regional director is Charley Riggs.
Guy Marshall is Anna's crew boss on the temporary fire crew of rangers pulled from Gulf Islands, Cape Hatteras, and Rick Spencer from the Natchez Trace Parkway. Lynette Wagner is a GS-4 interpretive ranger who's big into Jesus. Dijon Smith and Al Magnus (Jimmy is Al's eight-year-old son) are the others.
Marty Schlessinger is a biologist with bad breath and worse manners. Mitch Hanson is a double-dipping dozer operator with Maintenance and lives on a houseboat with his wife, Louise. Slattery Hammond owns a twin-engine Beechcraft, doing work for the federal government and whose services are shared by the park and the US Forest Service. Linda Hammond is his wife; they have a son, Dylan.
The aviation safety crew
Alice Utterback is the chief investigator for Region Six. Shorty Power is the fixed-wing specialist. Wayne Pitt is the maintenance specialist.
Stafford is one of the derelict mansions with a cottage on the grounds where Mona and Dot, VIPs (Volunteers in Parks) helping with the turtle inventory, etc., live. In their real life, they're retired schoolteachers from West Virginia who enjoy helping out. Flicka is the fawn they adopted.
St Marys is...
...the nearby town. Ms Pudge works at the hospital. Officers Mangino and King were the arresting officers. Janice also seems to work at the station. Felicity had been handling the Hull case.
Maggie May is an impressively sized alligator. Guenther and Shawna are hikers who catch a bullet.
The suspicious-seeming patients include...
...James Lubbock and his hostile wife, Portia; Shelia Thomas was the not-so-gay divorcée; Nancy Bradshaw has a temper and smashes lamps; and, Lester Mack, in jail for murdering a boy, was paroled.
Mesa Verde, Colorado, is...
...where Anna is currently based. Frieda is a friend of Anna's, the dispatcher at Mesa Verde, and the chief ranger's secretary with more contacts than Carter's got pills. The district ranger is Hills Dutton. Bella Meyers is the seven-year-old daughter of one of the park employees in Mesa Verde. She suffers from dwarfism Jennifer is a friend of Frieda's.
The Cover and Title
The cover is is primarily a range of oranges from the orange-yellow sky backlighting the fuzzy ruined mansion with its lighter orange driveway. An info blurb is at the top in a cream that is used in the author's name at the top. Below that is an airplane gauge with a white twin-engine Beechcraft flying at an angle through it. Below this is the title in a pale yellow with the series information (in cream) between the words. At the very bottom is a testimonial??
The title is those loggerhead turtles, an Endangered Species, right along with Anna.
My Take
It's something of a slow, easy read in between action-packed scenes — nothing like a few gunshots and hostage taking to liven things up, *grin*, — as Anna slips in behind the scenes to investigate a double murder.
Stanton's consultation with Molly over those death threats proves interesting — I'll need to read Blind Descent to see how that romance progresses(??). As for Anna's side of the story, motives are running amuck, and we experience them through Anna's perspective in third person protagonist point-of-view.
That Alice is an interesting character. She comes off tough but has a practical side with a sense of humor. She certainly takes Anna's suspicions well.
Now Tabby. That girl is a pain in the patooti. Yeah, I know she's grieving, but, jesus, what a dishrag."'I'm sorry I didn't kill Slattery.'
'That's all right, ' Anna said generously. 'It was just a thought.'"
Her fellow crew members have the usual interactions with Anna — all-boy with their bragging and joking. Anna takes it all as it's meant. There is a bit of anti-woman in here, as Anna is competing with the "boys", who are put out that they didn't get in on the action.
Omigod. Anna doesn't have to worry about Zach's ashes anymore. It's horrifying, yet funny in a gruesome way.
Nope, I gotta disagree with Candice about the Ford Probe her dad was lusting after. It may not look like a Mustang or Lamborghini, but it does drive like a sports car. I had two of 'em, and I do love to drive.
"An armed society is a polite society." lolAnd in spite of that comment, it's a peaceful ending, in several ways.
The Story
It was supposed to be a cushy, almost vacation-like posting. But then a plane crashes, and Anna and her crew are too late to save the pilot and his passenger.
When the cause turns out to be sabotage, Anna goes on her own crusade behind the scenes, turning up too many secrets that will endanger Anna.
She's not the only one in danger, though. Her sister, Molly, is getting her own death threats, and Frederick offers to help.
The Characters
Forty-two-year-old Anna Pigeon is a National Park Service GS-9 field ranger with EMT skills, a.k.a., Beth Cuvelier, ahem, who moves from park to park and has issues with alcohol. This time she came from Mesa Verde in Colorado. Piedmont is her orange tiger cat. Dr Molly Pigeon, a psychiatrist in New York City, is Anna's sister with her own addiction, cigarettes. Zach had been the love of Anna's life. She's still carrying his ashes from park to park.
Frederick Stanton, a Chicago-based FBI agent who has worked with Anna on a couple of homicides, is dating her. Danny and Taters are his pet budgerigars. Candice is his daughter.
Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia, is...
...a cushy temporary gig for NPS employees to keep a fire watch. Todd Belfore, the district ranger and the only law enforcement ranger on Cumberland, and Tabby, Todd's pregnant wife, live at Plum Orchard, one of the semi-derelict mansions.
Norman Hull is the Cumberland chief ranger. Renee is his secretary. Cheryl is his wife, and Ellen is their ne'er-do-well daughter. The Southeast regional director is Charley Riggs.
Guy Marshall is Anna's crew boss on the temporary fire crew of rangers pulled from Gulf Islands, Cape Hatteras, and Rick Spencer from the Natchez Trace Parkway. Lynette Wagner is a GS-4 interpretive ranger who's big into Jesus. Dijon Smith and Al Magnus (Jimmy is Al's eight-year-old son) are the others.
Marty Schlessinger is a biologist with bad breath and worse manners. Mitch Hanson is a double-dipping dozer operator with Maintenance and lives on a houseboat with his wife, Louise. Slattery Hammond owns a twin-engine Beechcraft, doing work for the federal government and whose services are shared by the park and the US Forest Service. Linda Hammond is his wife; they have a son, Dylan.
The aviation safety crew
Alice Utterback is the chief investigator for Region Six. Shorty Power is the fixed-wing specialist. Wayne Pitt is the maintenance specialist.
Stafford is one of the derelict mansions with a cottage on the grounds where Mona and Dot, VIPs (Volunteers in Parks) helping with the turtle inventory, etc., live. In their real life, they're retired schoolteachers from West Virginia who enjoy helping out. Flicka is the fawn they adopted.
St Marys is...
...the nearby town. Ms Pudge works at the hospital. Officers Mangino and King were the arresting officers. Janice also seems to work at the station. Felicity had been handling the Hull case.
Maggie May is an impressively sized alligator. Guenther and Shawna are hikers who catch a bullet.
The suspicious-seeming patients include...
...James Lubbock and his hostile wife, Portia; Shelia Thomas was the not-so-gay divorcée; Nancy Bradshaw has a temper and smashes lamps; and, Lester Mack, in jail for murdering a boy, was paroled.
Mesa Verde, Colorado, is...
...where Anna is currently based. Frieda is a friend of Anna's, the dispatcher at Mesa Verde, and the chief ranger's secretary with more contacts than Carter's got pills. The district ranger is Hills Dutton. Bella Meyers is the seven-year-old daughter of one of the park employees in Mesa Verde. She suffers from dwarfism Jennifer is a friend of Frieda's.
The Cover and Title
The cover is is primarily a range of oranges from the orange-yellow sky backlighting the fuzzy ruined mansion with its lighter orange driveway. An info blurb is at the top in a cream that is used in the author's name at the top. Below that is an airplane gauge with a white twin-engine Beechcraft flying at an angle through it. Below this is the title in a pale yellow with the series information (in cream) between the words. At the very bottom is a testimonial??
The title is those loggerhead turtles, an Endangered Species, right along with Anna.
March 4, 2009
They're all turning into Dick Francis books to me...So many similar sounding titles that you discover you've read them when you get home from the library... and like Francis - so so as mysteries go...likeable characters...especially Anna Pigeon...Love the settings in our national parks...the settings have compelled me to read more of the series
January 10, 2022
I have been reading Ms. Barr for years and all of her books are wonderful. Filled with mystery, information about National Parks, and maybe a few loving feelings. She isn't one to get the main character, Anna Pigeon, in a sexy scene.
This book doesn't fail to hold your attention with interesting characters, murder, and loggerhead turtles hatching.
Her main job is keeping us safe from fires and accidents at the parks and she is on loan to Cumberland Island as a firefighter. The island is extremely dry and teams are rotated in and out to stay on the island making sure fires are kept under control.
Everything is going well until a small plane crashes, killing a seasonal park worker and a Park Ranger. It looks like an accident, or is it?
This book doesn't fail to hold your attention with interesting characters, murder, and loggerhead turtles hatching.
Her main job is keeping us safe from fires and accidents at the parks and she is on loan to Cumberland Island as a firefighter. The island is extremely dry and teams are rotated in and out to stay on the island making sure fires are kept under control.
Everything is going well until a small plane crashes, killing a seasonal park worker and a Park Ranger. It looks like an accident, or is it?
October 5, 2015
This was a pretty good story - Anna is sent to a National Park off the coast of Georgia for "pre-fire suppression" and instead of a fire, there's a plane crash. And the plane was sabotaged.
And, as usual, Anna figures out who did it and the culprit tries to kill her. Never fails!
I enjoyed the story. Moving on to the next one.
And, as usual, Anna figures out who did it and the culprit tries to kill her. Never fails!
I enjoyed the story. Moving on to the next one.
April 20, 2018
Nevada Barr takes Anna Pigeon, Park ranger to Cumberland Island National Seashore; a secluded island off the Georgia coast. As before, I went to the Internet to learn more about this National holding. Pictures and maps help me visualize Anna as she delves into several mysteries that occur there. Anna has overcome her excessive drinking with the encouragement from her sister, Molly, whom she calls regularly from wherever she is stationed. Molly plays a bigger part in this book along with Anna's new love-interest, Frederick. Love this series not only for the mysteries, but also I like learning about the National Parks.
October 1, 2017
Another good book in the Anna Pigeon series. This time she's in Cumberland Island. There were many layers to this and just enough characters to where it got hard to keep them all straight. Good story and an exciting ending.
March 6, 2014
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These links sent through from Wanda:
http://www.cumberlandisland.com/
http://www.gpb.org/georgia-outdoors/s...
Preposterous fawn action.
#73 TBR Busting 2013
3* Track of the Cat
3* A Superior Death
3* Ill Wind
3* Firestorm
2* Endangered Species
These links sent through from Wanda:
http://www.cumberlandisland.com/
http://www.gpb.org/georgia-outdoors/s...
Preposterous fawn action.
#73 TBR Busting 2013
3* Track of the Cat
3* A Superior Death
3* Ill Wind
3* Firestorm
2* Endangered Species
June 29, 2019
The adventures of Anna Pigeon are always fun to read. She manages to get herself in trouble in each of them. One of the things that sets them apart is that they are set in the National Parks. So reading one is like visiting a National Park. Barr does a good job of describing the Park and what life is like for a ranger there. There are a lot more Parks than I've ever been to and this is a good way to enjoy them. Along the way of course Anna manages to solve a mystery or two. Good summer time reading.
April 10, 2020
This was a really good book. I am never going to the islands off Georgia! All the chiggers, ticks, spiders and snakes - no thank you! Loved Flicka. I wonder if the ladies will stay or take him. Rick's ribbing of Anna was so funny. Really good mystery. I had no idea. The series gets better and better.
August 14, 2025
Best Yet
Of the five, this is my favorite so far. Mrs. Barr must fully immerse herself in the locale when writing these books because, best I can tell, she’s spot on every time. Superior Death held me tight, but being a dyed in the wool 9th generation Southern Appalachian, I loved the humidity in this one. And the war on chiggers and ticks! Anna Pigeon is as funny and gritty as always, and you want to tell her to be careful at every turn. I loved it and am ready to plow forward to book 6.
Favorite passages
Anna’s hair curled and her fingernails grew. After so long in the high desert of southern Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park, she felt like a raisin turning back into a grape.
“Oooeee, I wish I had balls the size of a ghost crab’s,” he said. “Those little suckers aren’t afraid of anything.” The little crustaceans, the biggest not-more than ten inches from claw to claw, would stand on their back legs and challenge the ton-and-a-half pumper trucks as they drove down the beach.
“Marty seemed deeply aggrieved that he not only had the temerity to exist but the unmitigated gall to do it in his vicinity.”
An addiction to pipe tobacco gave the user an unearned air of deep and considered wisdom.
his alarmingly pregnant wife
Word had come down that the wealthy denizens of Cumberland were “not accustomed to interference.” Tourists were fair game but they were disappointingly well behaved.
Mrs. Belfore was a small-boned woman, pale and blond and clingy.
Lynette said something indecipherable and Rick laughed too loud and too long.
The weird little beasts delighted her.
and started a future with all the forethought of a blue jay planting an acorn.
She sounded stressed, repressed, and decidedly clear.
Contrary to Hollywood’s febrile depictions, a psychiatrist’s life is not fraught with serial killers. Killers of any kind are rare. Killers who seek help are virtually nonexistent. Except for my prison work—and that’s mostly drug rehab and depression—my patients are wealthy neurotics.
Winter didn’t sing to her the way summer did.
It would be delicious to sink back into frailty and let the battles be fought around you.
she allowed herself a brief fantasy of giving in, giving up, giving over; absolute trust and, so, absolute dependence. Appealing, but only momentarily.
Despite her vocation, Anna’s sister was remarkably sane.
Impersonal to the point of cruelty.
hatred wasn’t the worst of emotions. If one hated, one still cared. Indifference was the most inhuman.
Clouds were just beginning to build, as they did every day, making a promise of rain they never kept.
Rick had his shortcomings but timidity was not among them.
The interpreter had a cozy little cabin in the woods near the salt marshes that she shared with the fattest dog Anna had ever seen. Lynette insisted the beast was a Weimaraner, but Anna had never seen one wider than it was long. Personally, she suspected the dog’s mother of mating with one of the island’s feral pigs.
there was something reassuring in the breaking of bread with another.
From the unhesitating beeline he made toward the corpses, Anna guessed he was the coroner.
The island was surrounded by water but so delicate was the chemistry of life that to use salt water to quench inland fires would damage the ecological balance.
knowing the answer but feeling the need to make hostess noises.
It was how she imagined a woman’s face would look if her heart suddenly imploded and she had the misfortune to go on living.
Anna pulled up a second chair and sat knee to knee with Tabby, ready to catch her if she fell. They were still sitting like that when the helicopter came.
Dusk had come and gone and the cloak of night gave her privacy for this ultimate freedom. She marveled at how different life was without clothes on; better—For modern Victorians—a culture that kept nudity in darkened movie theaters linked always with sex and more often than not with violence—to be outdoors and naked was exhilarating, wild, dangerous. Particularly for a woman alone.
She added sharks to the list of things she refused to think about. Fear was a burglar, breaking into one’s mind, stealing away peace. Mentally she bolted her doors and drifted with the night.
reveling in the sensual thrill of water against her skin.
“Bear with me now. I’ve had the training, but this is the first time I’ve had to use it,”
Goaded by fear of fear, Anna decided to go first.
Like a good soldier he followed orders, even those he didn’t thoroughly comprehend.
Unfortunately, at forty-five with twenty-three years in law enforcement, there was very little left that was unthinkable. But living alone had grown tiresome, the long-distance relationship a lonely and irritating compromise.
He’d never met or spoken with her but he didn’t doubt she knew everything about him, from how he voted in the last election to the size of his penis. Once a man started sleeping with a woman, he was a fool to think he had any secrets left.
Career criminals, those citizens who tended to have their fingerprints on record, weren’t much given to letter writing.
“This is Frederick Stanton of the FBI,” he said stiffly, then rolled his eyes at himself. “This is Dr. Pigeon,” returned a cool voice. Title to title, they waited. “I just called to see if my introduction was truly pompous or if I should work on it,” Frederick said. Molly laughed and he was relieved. The laugh itself was an infectious cackle suitable for the kidnapper of Toto and other strong women in history.
“Why do you think it’s a woman?” “I know it’s a woman,” Molly said. “The choice of words, the handwriting, the stationery, the voice on my message machine, all were female.” “Could you be fooled?” A moment’s silence, then: “Yes.” Frederick admired an answer devoid of excuses. Anybody could be fooled anytime. Professionals had a harder time admitting that than most. His opinion of Molly went up a notch. Till that instant he’d not realized how prepared he was to dislike her. Defensive, he told himself. Anna had talked so much about her sister, he’d felt intimidated.
AT FIVE A.M. Anna slunk downstairs to reap the rewards of coffee beans sown the night before. Their quarters were blessed with a state-of-the-art automatic coffeemaker
Them that mocked luxury were the first to pilfer, Anna thought ungenerously.
Nearly always the second pilgrim to worship at the coffee shrine
Both stared contentedly at nothing, waiting for the caffeine to burn away the night’s vapors.
She didn’t smile much, Anna noted. A distinctly unfeminine trait. Women—girls—were taught to smile under any and all circumstances. Probably the human equivalent of the little dog showing the big dog its throat as a sign of submission. Alice Utterback was evidently a big dog.
Giving in to generous impulses usually left her grouchy by day’s end.
There’d been a time when Anna was younger and easily offended that she would have taken umbrage at being cast in the traditional female role. In the intervening years she’d lived through enough bureaucracy to know secretaries not only were the glue in the mix, holding the cumbersome aspects of government together, but frequently were the only ones in possession of all the facts. In one form or another—letter, fax, phone call, or gossip—all information passed over their desks. And, too, there wasn’t much heavy lifting, so Anna was content to be Utterback’s Girl Friday.
Write this down. Put it in parentheses so I’ll know it’s just me guesstimating and not God’s honest truth.
In the flatlands of east Georgia the sun set in slow motion. Twilight filtered down like fine dust, a gray drift over the brash colors of summer.
Time had clearly ceased to be a measurable linear entity.
Anna continued to ignore the other woman’s desire to enjoy the lush Georgia night.
she was unquestionably a Pigeon. A formidable one. Everything about her breathed power, competence, and control.
The illusion of coldness was dispelled. But not the illusion of control. Her handshake, the invitation to sit, the slight nod that brought a waiter running, all gave Frederick the reassuring feeling that he’d been accepted into a well-ordered universe. “Scotch, no ice,” Frederick said to the waiter. “The same,” Molly said, then cackled. “You and I are going to get along fine.” Her eyes were hazel, like Anna’s, and deeply crinkled at the corners. Feigned or not, they almost twinkled with interest, as if she eagerly awaited the fascinating story of his life. Frederick could see how she commanded $150 an hour. “An FBI agent,” Molly stated. “A psychiatrist,” he countered.
Molly laughed again and the sheer ghoulish sound of her odd chortle made him laugh with her. “Don’t you sometimes wish you had an occupation that didn’t require comment?” she asked. “Yes,” he answered honestly. “When I’m tired, I’ve been known to lie just to avoid a discussion of Ruby Ridge.” “It could be worse. You could work for the IRS.”
Frederick was amused to find a few good old-fashioned diagnoses: “Cheryl M.—terminal boredom,” “Steven P.—pompous ass.”
Mostly I’ve priced myself out of the real world. My clients tend to be wealthy neurotics.
I included her because she was literate, well-spoken, a businesswoman, and the two nasty notes she sent me were beautifully written on expensive stationery.
The sound of wind in the pines wasn’t music to him. It struck his ear as the very breath of loneliness.
I don’t know how she would fare back in an urban environment.
They’d made his little heart go pitty-pat. “Not good,” he whispered to himself as he watched the cab drive away, Molly straight and strong in the back seat, the enormity that was New York City wrapped around her like a well-fitting cloak.
Standing had not yet become an occupation she excelled at.
Apparently the Belfores treated only maladies of the ego. A clutter of products promising to restore hair, keep skin young, and grow strong fingernails filled the shelves.
There was something in near misses, twists of fate, that rekindled in the human psyche the desire to believe in a grand master plan.
The dispatcher had connections in odd and useful places.
What hadn’t occurred to her till she was free of it was the tension and sorrow that permeated every stick of furniture and scrap of fabric that made up the Belfore home. Even before Tabby returned from the mainland, Anna had sensed it. Fear was there in the many locks, in the unguents and creams for maintaining youth; sadness in the pink chiffon dressing gown unsuited for a widow, in the wide bed, lonely for one; in every picture where, against a glorious backdrop of green mountains, a blond woman smiled at a dead man.
“A man gets extra points for being charming to horrid old women,”
the weight behind the breastbone, the pressure at the base of the skull, the tedious and exhausting necessity to breathe in and breathe out, the endless theatrical that demons put on just behind the eyes, making it impossible to focus on the words of those still living.
“He was unilaterally charming,” Dot explained. “Pleasant for antiquarian educators but no doubt aggravating for sweet young things.”
Love was a respectable motive for murder, well represented in fact and fiction,
Love, the kind that could get one killed, was passionate, immediate, dramatic—
“We could go feed the baby alligators,” Dijon suggested.
Feeding wild animals human food was seldom healthy for them, and feeding wild animals that could grow up to feed on you, unwise at the best of times. everyone had hand-fed the little gators since they were hatchlings. Now the babies, all fourteen of them, were a couple of feet long. Whenever a human approached the pool they lived in, they all came crowding around like pigeons in the park. But with pointier teeth. So far Anna had kept to the moral high ground and not given in to the temptation to feed them, but she watched Rick and Dijon do it and enjoyed the show, which was just as bad. Hypocrite, she reproved herself, but there was no power behind the thought. The day was too warm, the clatter of cicadas too soothing, and the baby gators too much fun to watch for her to get up a strong case against herself.
He was trying to get a rise out of Anna, but with his youth and transparency, he only succeeded in being kind of cute.
“God, I hate it when people lie to me,” Dijon said. “You’re in for a miserable life then,” Anna told him. “Everybody lies all the time just for the hell of it. By the way, you’ve got a tick on your neck.” “Jesus Christ!” Dijon yelled, and scrambled from the hood to wrench the side mirror out to where he could examine himself. “Shit. There’s no tick.” “See what I mean?” “Anna, I wish you had balls. Then I’d know what to do with you.”
In seventy-two hours he’d lost control.
There’d been a woman in California, a married woman, he’d made a fool of himself over. Much, he suspected later, to her great if adamantly denied delight.
a choice between the tedium of having and the endless potential in wanting.
Anna wasn’t so much lazy as genetically skinny and congenitally opposed to profitless exertion.
Like any task, once undertaken the search took on a life of its own, becoming important by the simple fact it had proven difficult.
Compassion fought with irritation in Anna’s breast.
It was the transience that was beginning to weigh heavily.
Like mountaintops and desert strongholds, human beings sought out islands for a lot of reasons. Some washed ashore, cast up by the storms of their lives. Some were running, some hiding, some chasing a dream.
The exquisite balm of the South wrapped around her.
All at once she felt vulnerable; a wrinkling white-skinned woman on a peeling white-painted step.
The South was famous for vivid eccentricity. Anna could see why. Anger flared in the heat; reality became tenuous.
Her voice was choked with tears. Her voice was always choked with tears. Though Anna understood and even empathized, it was beginning to get on her nerves.
Anna liked Tabby well enough but the woman had a bit of the invertebrate about her.
Round without in any way being fat
This murder was not unlike the Deep South itself, intricate, slow-moving, relationships unclear, each aspect draped or veiled by something else.
On Mesa Verde there were two trees that had joined together late in life. Pushed over by a storm, they became one rather than die. Anna wondered how many years it took human beings to grow together like that.
“Can I interview the old broads? I thought of ’em.” Inwardly, Anna groaned. At least she thought it was inward until Dijon said: “Stop making noises like a buffalo in heat. Come on,” Dijon wheedled with transparent charm.
“I wish something would break,” Guy said. “Rain, wind, fire, any damn thing. I swear ain’t nothing changed since we got here but me. I’m a damn sight older, I can tell you that.” “You don’t want wind or rain,” Lynette teased him. “You want fire. You’re such an old fire horse, you’ll die and go to hell and think you’ve landed in heaven.” “If it’s burnin’ I’ll put it out,” Guy bragged inoffensively, and won another laugh
“Me kill Hammond . . . I must say there’s an appeal there. Killing a government employee has got to be less complicated than firing one. “I don’t think I could bring myself to screw up a perfectly good airplane.
Were I to embark on a life of crime…I’d hire only women and only those of a certain age—somewhere between forty and ninety—women with sedans, credit cards, and salon-styled hair. Drugs, white slavery, gunrunning—you name it—we could take over the market. Nobody would suspect us of a thing. Least of all of having initiative and a brain in our heads.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t kill Slattery.”
Without the checks and balances provided by friends, family, and the eyes of one’s neighbors, risks were taken and rules forgotten.
How on earth they could be so sanguine about torching their cash crop mystified her. Of course, the way things were going, how her head remained on her shoulders was beginning to mystify her.
One come-hither look and Frederick knew he would betray Anna in actuality as he had already in his heart.
Often the worst things that happen are when someone important sees to it nothing happens at all; a refusal of love, friendship, or help when it is most needed.
All was black as pitch and she couldn’t move. She probably wasn’t dead. Twice before she’d thought she was dead and had been mistaken.
Reality began reasserting itself in negatives: it was not light, she was not straight, she was not dead, no one was going to come and pull her out of the hog pen. Armed with knowledge of the parameters, she took action.
Twenty minutes later she had her body back, such as it was. It was not pleased with her, nor she with it. During her protracted sabbatical from reality, she’d become home to a thriving colony of chiggers.
Conceding victory to the chiggers, she turned her limited attention span on ticks. By the light of her flash she began detaching engorged insects from her person. At first she crushed them between her nails. The death penalty: not revenge, just discouraging recidivism. It wasn’t long before the gore upset her stomach and she stopped, satisfying herself with flinging the bugs into the darkness
There weren’t three square inches of skin anywhere on her body that did not itch with such viciousness it took all her self-control not to claw the flesh from bone. Anna hated the South and everyone and everything crawling around in it.
According to Dijon, an expert on all things repulsive, the little buggers burrowed in and lived there.
“Huh?” Tabby blinked, her eyes round and rabbity. Everything about the woman so aggravated Anna’s strained nerves that she had to fight down an urge to slap her.
Pointless, wonderful stories without drama, violence, or passion.
“WHAT THE HELL happened to you? You look like you got run over by a bush hog.” “I think it makes me look kind of like Audrey Hepburn.” “Yeah,” Dijon agreed. “She’s been dead awhile.”
Anna always suspected overly jolly people of hiding black hearts.
She had a knack for giving everyday things a festive air: filing, typing, drinking.
Being even peripherally responsible for the weeping, gestating girl was tiring.
Molly laughed with her and when the laughter wore out they were both scared.
A self-confessed murderess and a drunken lover of the deceased left the scene. Anna couldn’t dredge up an iota of concern. She couldn’t picture Tabby taking it on the lam in a stolen VW bug.
Screaming like a banshee, Anna began throwing everything she could lay her hands on: rocks, sticks, dirt clods, and something that felt suspiciously like a frog…She hoped she sounded like an army of lunatics.
She could save her precious little hide. Inch by inch she began easing backward through the marsh. A quarter-mile’s slither would bring her to swimmable water. After her long intimacy with chiggers and ticks, leeches struck her as almost family.
Outrage flooded her veins. “You shot me!” she heard herself screaming. “You fucking shot me.” Fury swept her up. She’d never been so angry; she was amazed her hair didn’t catch on fire.
“God damn,” Rick said, and Anna was scared.
“If he does anything you don’t like, just shoot him. Can you do that?” “Yes indeed,” Mona said, with a clarity that satisfied him.
Anna was scared. “Can I hold Flicka while we wait?” she asked.
Bravery was possible when one’s companions made light of one’s predicament. Sympathy could unman the most stalwart.
Solitude was a drug harder to come by in the modern world than most.
“Anna, you’re acting like a dog with a sore paw. We try and help you and you bite us.” Her eyes bored into Anna’s and, shamed back into third grade, Anna mumbled an apology.
“Are you going to be a pill?” “No, ma’am.”
She looked as if she were dead and wished it were true…“What happened to your face? Have you been having fun without me?”
Of the five, this is my favorite so far. Mrs. Barr must fully immerse herself in the locale when writing these books because, best I can tell, she’s spot on every time. Superior Death held me tight, but being a dyed in the wool 9th generation Southern Appalachian, I loved the humidity in this one. And the war on chiggers and ticks! Anna Pigeon is as funny and gritty as always, and you want to tell her to be careful at every turn. I loved it and am ready to plow forward to book 6.
Favorite passages
Anna’s hair curled and her fingernails grew. After so long in the high desert of southern Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park, she felt like a raisin turning back into a grape.
“Oooeee, I wish I had balls the size of a ghost crab’s,” he said. “Those little suckers aren’t afraid of anything.” The little crustaceans, the biggest not-more than ten inches from claw to claw, would stand on their back legs and challenge the ton-and-a-half pumper trucks as they drove down the beach.
“Marty seemed deeply aggrieved that he not only had the temerity to exist but the unmitigated gall to do it in his vicinity.”
An addiction to pipe tobacco gave the user an unearned air of deep and considered wisdom.
his alarmingly pregnant wife
Word had come down that the wealthy denizens of Cumberland were “not accustomed to interference.” Tourists were fair game but they were disappointingly well behaved.
Mrs. Belfore was a small-boned woman, pale and blond and clingy.
Lynette said something indecipherable and Rick laughed too loud and too long.
The weird little beasts delighted her.
and started a future with all the forethought of a blue jay planting an acorn.
She sounded stressed, repressed, and decidedly clear.
Contrary to Hollywood’s febrile depictions, a psychiatrist’s life is not fraught with serial killers. Killers of any kind are rare. Killers who seek help are virtually nonexistent. Except for my prison work—and that’s mostly drug rehab and depression—my patients are wealthy neurotics.
Winter didn’t sing to her the way summer did.
It would be delicious to sink back into frailty and let the battles be fought around you.
she allowed herself a brief fantasy of giving in, giving up, giving over; absolute trust and, so, absolute dependence. Appealing, but only momentarily.
Despite her vocation, Anna’s sister was remarkably sane.
Impersonal to the point of cruelty.
hatred wasn’t the worst of emotions. If one hated, one still cared. Indifference was the most inhuman.
Clouds were just beginning to build, as they did every day, making a promise of rain they never kept.
Rick had his shortcomings but timidity was not among them.
The interpreter had a cozy little cabin in the woods near the salt marshes that she shared with the fattest dog Anna had ever seen. Lynette insisted the beast was a Weimaraner, but Anna had never seen one wider than it was long. Personally, she suspected the dog’s mother of mating with one of the island’s feral pigs.
there was something reassuring in the breaking of bread with another.
From the unhesitating beeline he made toward the corpses, Anna guessed he was the coroner.
The island was surrounded by water but so delicate was the chemistry of life that to use salt water to quench inland fires would damage the ecological balance.
knowing the answer but feeling the need to make hostess noises.
It was how she imagined a woman’s face would look if her heart suddenly imploded and she had the misfortune to go on living.
Anna pulled up a second chair and sat knee to knee with Tabby, ready to catch her if she fell. They were still sitting like that when the helicopter came.
Dusk had come and gone and the cloak of night gave her privacy for this ultimate freedom. She marveled at how different life was without clothes on; better—For modern Victorians—a culture that kept nudity in darkened movie theaters linked always with sex and more often than not with violence—to be outdoors and naked was exhilarating, wild, dangerous. Particularly for a woman alone.
She added sharks to the list of things she refused to think about. Fear was a burglar, breaking into one’s mind, stealing away peace. Mentally she bolted her doors and drifted with the night.
reveling in the sensual thrill of water against her skin.
“Bear with me now. I’ve had the training, but this is the first time I’ve had to use it,”
Goaded by fear of fear, Anna decided to go first.
Like a good soldier he followed orders, even those he didn’t thoroughly comprehend.
Unfortunately, at forty-five with twenty-three years in law enforcement, there was very little left that was unthinkable. But living alone had grown tiresome, the long-distance relationship a lonely and irritating compromise.
He’d never met or spoken with her but he didn’t doubt she knew everything about him, from how he voted in the last election to the size of his penis. Once a man started sleeping with a woman, he was a fool to think he had any secrets left.
Career criminals, those citizens who tended to have their fingerprints on record, weren’t much given to letter writing.
“This is Frederick Stanton of the FBI,” he said stiffly, then rolled his eyes at himself. “This is Dr. Pigeon,” returned a cool voice. Title to title, they waited. “I just called to see if my introduction was truly pompous or if I should work on it,” Frederick said. Molly laughed and he was relieved. The laugh itself was an infectious cackle suitable for the kidnapper of Toto and other strong women in history.
“Why do you think it’s a woman?” “I know it’s a woman,” Molly said. “The choice of words, the handwriting, the stationery, the voice on my message machine, all were female.” “Could you be fooled?” A moment’s silence, then: “Yes.” Frederick admired an answer devoid of excuses. Anybody could be fooled anytime. Professionals had a harder time admitting that than most. His opinion of Molly went up a notch. Till that instant he’d not realized how prepared he was to dislike her. Defensive, he told himself. Anna had talked so much about her sister, he’d felt intimidated.
AT FIVE A.M. Anna slunk downstairs to reap the rewards of coffee beans sown the night before. Their quarters were blessed with a state-of-the-art automatic coffeemaker
Them that mocked luxury were the first to pilfer, Anna thought ungenerously.
Nearly always the second pilgrim to worship at the coffee shrine
Both stared contentedly at nothing, waiting for the caffeine to burn away the night’s vapors.
She didn’t smile much, Anna noted. A distinctly unfeminine trait. Women—girls—were taught to smile under any and all circumstances. Probably the human equivalent of the little dog showing the big dog its throat as a sign of submission. Alice Utterback was evidently a big dog.
Giving in to generous impulses usually left her grouchy by day’s end.
There’d been a time when Anna was younger and easily offended that she would have taken umbrage at being cast in the traditional female role. In the intervening years she’d lived through enough bureaucracy to know secretaries not only were the glue in the mix, holding the cumbersome aspects of government together, but frequently were the only ones in possession of all the facts. In one form or another—letter, fax, phone call, or gossip—all information passed over their desks. And, too, there wasn’t much heavy lifting, so Anna was content to be Utterback’s Girl Friday.
Write this down. Put it in parentheses so I’ll know it’s just me guesstimating and not God’s honest truth.
In the flatlands of east Georgia the sun set in slow motion. Twilight filtered down like fine dust, a gray drift over the brash colors of summer.
Time had clearly ceased to be a measurable linear entity.
Anna continued to ignore the other woman’s desire to enjoy the lush Georgia night.
she was unquestionably a Pigeon. A formidable one. Everything about her breathed power, competence, and control.
The illusion of coldness was dispelled. But not the illusion of control. Her handshake, the invitation to sit, the slight nod that brought a waiter running, all gave Frederick the reassuring feeling that he’d been accepted into a well-ordered universe. “Scotch, no ice,” Frederick said to the waiter. “The same,” Molly said, then cackled. “You and I are going to get along fine.” Her eyes were hazel, like Anna’s, and deeply crinkled at the corners. Feigned or not, they almost twinkled with interest, as if she eagerly awaited the fascinating story of his life. Frederick could see how she commanded $150 an hour. “An FBI agent,” Molly stated. “A psychiatrist,” he countered.
Molly laughed again and the sheer ghoulish sound of her odd chortle made him laugh with her. “Don’t you sometimes wish you had an occupation that didn’t require comment?” she asked. “Yes,” he answered honestly. “When I’m tired, I’ve been known to lie just to avoid a discussion of Ruby Ridge.” “It could be worse. You could work for the IRS.”
Frederick was amused to find a few good old-fashioned diagnoses: “Cheryl M.—terminal boredom,” “Steven P.—pompous ass.”
Mostly I’ve priced myself out of the real world. My clients tend to be wealthy neurotics.
I included her because she was literate, well-spoken, a businesswoman, and the two nasty notes she sent me were beautifully written on expensive stationery.
The sound of wind in the pines wasn’t music to him. It struck his ear as the very breath of loneliness.
I don’t know how she would fare back in an urban environment.
They’d made his little heart go pitty-pat. “Not good,” he whispered to himself as he watched the cab drive away, Molly straight and strong in the back seat, the enormity that was New York City wrapped around her like a well-fitting cloak.
Standing had not yet become an occupation she excelled at.
Apparently the Belfores treated only maladies of the ego. A clutter of products promising to restore hair, keep skin young, and grow strong fingernails filled the shelves.
There was something in near misses, twists of fate, that rekindled in the human psyche the desire to believe in a grand master plan.
The dispatcher had connections in odd and useful places.
What hadn’t occurred to her till she was free of it was the tension and sorrow that permeated every stick of furniture and scrap of fabric that made up the Belfore home. Even before Tabby returned from the mainland, Anna had sensed it. Fear was there in the many locks, in the unguents and creams for maintaining youth; sadness in the pink chiffon dressing gown unsuited for a widow, in the wide bed, lonely for one; in every picture where, against a glorious backdrop of green mountains, a blond woman smiled at a dead man.
“A man gets extra points for being charming to horrid old women,”
the weight behind the breastbone, the pressure at the base of the skull, the tedious and exhausting necessity to breathe in and breathe out, the endless theatrical that demons put on just behind the eyes, making it impossible to focus on the words of those still living.
“He was unilaterally charming,” Dot explained. “Pleasant for antiquarian educators but no doubt aggravating for sweet young things.”
Love was a respectable motive for murder, well represented in fact and fiction,
Love, the kind that could get one killed, was passionate, immediate, dramatic—
“We could go feed the baby alligators,” Dijon suggested.
Feeding wild animals human food was seldom healthy for them, and feeding wild animals that could grow up to feed on you, unwise at the best of times. everyone had hand-fed the little gators since they were hatchlings. Now the babies, all fourteen of them, were a couple of feet long. Whenever a human approached the pool they lived in, they all came crowding around like pigeons in the park. But with pointier teeth. So far Anna had kept to the moral high ground and not given in to the temptation to feed them, but she watched Rick and Dijon do it and enjoyed the show, which was just as bad. Hypocrite, she reproved herself, but there was no power behind the thought. The day was too warm, the clatter of cicadas too soothing, and the baby gators too much fun to watch for her to get up a strong case against herself.
He was trying to get a rise out of Anna, but with his youth and transparency, he only succeeded in being kind of cute.
“God, I hate it when people lie to me,” Dijon said. “You’re in for a miserable life then,” Anna told him. “Everybody lies all the time just for the hell of it. By the way, you’ve got a tick on your neck.” “Jesus Christ!” Dijon yelled, and scrambled from the hood to wrench the side mirror out to where he could examine himself. “Shit. There’s no tick.” “See what I mean?” “Anna, I wish you had balls. Then I’d know what to do with you.”
In seventy-two hours he’d lost control.
There’d been a woman in California, a married woman, he’d made a fool of himself over. Much, he suspected later, to her great if adamantly denied delight.
a choice between the tedium of having and the endless potential in wanting.
Anna wasn’t so much lazy as genetically skinny and congenitally opposed to profitless exertion.
Like any task, once undertaken the search took on a life of its own, becoming important by the simple fact it had proven difficult.
Compassion fought with irritation in Anna’s breast.
It was the transience that was beginning to weigh heavily.
Like mountaintops and desert strongholds, human beings sought out islands for a lot of reasons. Some washed ashore, cast up by the storms of their lives. Some were running, some hiding, some chasing a dream.
The exquisite balm of the South wrapped around her.
All at once she felt vulnerable; a wrinkling white-skinned woman on a peeling white-painted step.
The South was famous for vivid eccentricity. Anna could see why. Anger flared in the heat; reality became tenuous.
Her voice was choked with tears. Her voice was always choked with tears. Though Anna understood and even empathized, it was beginning to get on her nerves.
Anna liked Tabby well enough but the woman had a bit of the invertebrate about her.
Round without in any way being fat
This murder was not unlike the Deep South itself, intricate, slow-moving, relationships unclear, each aspect draped or veiled by something else.
On Mesa Verde there were two trees that had joined together late in life. Pushed over by a storm, they became one rather than die. Anna wondered how many years it took human beings to grow together like that.
“Can I interview the old broads? I thought of ’em.” Inwardly, Anna groaned. At least she thought it was inward until Dijon said: “Stop making noises like a buffalo in heat. Come on,” Dijon wheedled with transparent charm.
“I wish something would break,” Guy said. “Rain, wind, fire, any damn thing. I swear ain’t nothing changed since we got here but me. I’m a damn sight older, I can tell you that.” “You don’t want wind or rain,” Lynette teased him. “You want fire. You’re such an old fire horse, you’ll die and go to hell and think you’ve landed in heaven.” “If it’s burnin’ I’ll put it out,” Guy bragged inoffensively, and won another laugh
“Me kill Hammond . . . I must say there’s an appeal there. Killing a government employee has got to be less complicated than firing one. “I don’t think I could bring myself to screw up a perfectly good airplane.
Were I to embark on a life of crime…I’d hire only women and only those of a certain age—somewhere between forty and ninety—women with sedans, credit cards, and salon-styled hair. Drugs, white slavery, gunrunning—you name it—we could take over the market. Nobody would suspect us of a thing. Least of all of having initiative and a brain in our heads.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t kill Slattery.”
Without the checks and balances provided by friends, family, and the eyes of one’s neighbors, risks were taken and rules forgotten.
How on earth they could be so sanguine about torching their cash crop mystified her. Of course, the way things were going, how her head remained on her shoulders was beginning to mystify her.
One come-hither look and Frederick knew he would betray Anna in actuality as he had already in his heart.
Often the worst things that happen are when someone important sees to it nothing happens at all; a refusal of love, friendship, or help when it is most needed.
All was black as pitch and she couldn’t move. She probably wasn’t dead. Twice before she’d thought she was dead and had been mistaken.
Reality began reasserting itself in negatives: it was not light, she was not straight, she was not dead, no one was going to come and pull her out of the hog pen. Armed with knowledge of the parameters, she took action.
Twenty minutes later she had her body back, such as it was. It was not pleased with her, nor she with it. During her protracted sabbatical from reality, she’d become home to a thriving colony of chiggers.
Conceding victory to the chiggers, she turned her limited attention span on ticks. By the light of her flash she began detaching engorged insects from her person. At first she crushed them between her nails. The death penalty: not revenge, just discouraging recidivism. It wasn’t long before the gore upset her stomach and she stopped, satisfying herself with flinging the bugs into the darkness
There weren’t three square inches of skin anywhere on her body that did not itch with such viciousness it took all her self-control not to claw the flesh from bone. Anna hated the South and everyone and everything crawling around in it.
According to Dijon, an expert on all things repulsive, the little buggers burrowed in and lived there.
“Huh?” Tabby blinked, her eyes round and rabbity. Everything about the woman so aggravated Anna’s strained nerves that she had to fight down an urge to slap her.
Pointless, wonderful stories without drama, violence, or passion.
“WHAT THE HELL happened to you? You look like you got run over by a bush hog.” “I think it makes me look kind of like Audrey Hepburn.” “Yeah,” Dijon agreed. “She’s been dead awhile.”
Anna always suspected overly jolly people of hiding black hearts.
She had a knack for giving everyday things a festive air: filing, typing, drinking.
Being even peripherally responsible for the weeping, gestating girl was tiring.
Molly laughed with her and when the laughter wore out they were both scared.
A self-confessed murderess and a drunken lover of the deceased left the scene. Anna couldn’t dredge up an iota of concern. She couldn’t picture Tabby taking it on the lam in a stolen VW bug.
Screaming like a banshee, Anna began throwing everything she could lay her hands on: rocks, sticks, dirt clods, and something that felt suspiciously like a frog…She hoped she sounded like an army of lunatics.
She could save her precious little hide. Inch by inch she began easing backward through the marsh. A quarter-mile’s slither would bring her to swimmable water. After her long intimacy with chiggers and ticks, leeches struck her as almost family.
Outrage flooded her veins. “You shot me!” she heard herself screaming. “You fucking shot me.” Fury swept her up. She’d never been so angry; she was amazed her hair didn’t catch on fire.
“God damn,” Rick said, and Anna was scared.
“If he does anything you don’t like, just shoot him. Can you do that?” “Yes indeed,” Mona said, with a clarity that satisfied him.
Anna was scared. “Can I hold Flicka while we wait?” she asked.
Bravery was possible when one’s companions made light of one’s predicament. Sympathy could unman the most stalwart.
Solitude was a drug harder to come by in the modern world than most.
“Anna, you’re acting like a dog with a sore paw. We try and help you and you bite us.” Her eyes bored into Anna’s and, shamed back into third grade, Anna mumbled an apology.
“Are you going to be a pill?” “No, ma’am.”
She looked as if she were dead and wished it were true…“What happened to your face? Have you been having fun without me?”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 2, 2009
Dual stories with FBI agent Stanton helping find the source of Molly's death threats while Ranger Anna Pigeon is finding out who caused a plane to crash in the Cumberland Island Park, Georgia.
Stanton faces his romantic midlife inconsistencies by falling for Molly while Anna faces her needs for the solace she finds in spacious nature despite chiggers, ticks and weighty turtles. Thus ends their affair of the heart. After Anna is stuck inhaling an acre of burning marijuana she has a bleating fawn lead her like Lassie to the rescue. A bit of silly imagery to offset the murder and mayhem.
Stanton faces his romantic midlife inconsistencies by falling for Molly while Anna faces her needs for the solace she finds in spacious nature despite chiggers, ticks and weighty turtles. Thus ends their affair of the heart. After Anna is stuck inhaling an acre of burning marijuana she has a bleating fawn lead her like Lassie to the rescue. A bit of silly imagery to offset the murder and mayhem.
April 1, 2016
I love this mystery series: Barr's Anna Pigeon novels are smart, gripping and well-written, and Anna has grown on me. Because Anna is a park ranger on various assignments across the U.S., the stories introduce new places to visit and provide detailed descriptions of the local flora and wildlife. Endangered Species takes place on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, and readers will learn about the loggerhead turtle, feral hogs, golden orb spiders and chiggers - in-between murder and mayhem, of course. ;)
October 7, 2018
Anna, Anna, Anna. Forever alone. Forever independent. Forever on the side of truth, justice, and the American way. She's like the NPS version of Superwoman. I also am convinced she's Kinsey Milhone's long lost sister. They have the same sort of life.
This time we are fighting fires on Cumberland Island, Georgia. We have baby turtles. And drug runners. And a plane crash. And Anna gets knocked around, duped, then saves the day. Go on, girl, with your plucky self.
And nothing surprised me at the end, but it was still an enjoyable ride. 3 stars, as usual.
This time we are fighting fires on Cumberland Island, Georgia. We have baby turtles. And drug runners. And a plane crash. And Anna gets knocked around, duped, then saves the day. Go on, girl, with your plucky self.
And nothing surprised me at the end, but it was still an enjoyable ride. 3 stars, as usual.
March 16, 2015
I liked it. I'm glad I put some space between the last book in the series that I read and this one, but I will some distance before the next one too. The writing is good, I liked getting to know Molly better, and Anna continues to be an interesting character for me. Well worth the time on a Sunday morning to read.
December 29, 2019
WHO DOESN't love Barr?
Anna Pigeon rocks! I have listened to this before, but it never hurts to visit old friends!
If you haven't listened to or read this series, you are missing something. Anna is a great detective and park ranger. The plots are realistic, the character is real and you can't go wrong. I have read and listened and I love the narrator...
Happy reading.
Anna Pigeon rocks! I have listened to this before, but it never hurts to visit old friends!
If you haven't listened to or read this series, you are missing something. Anna is a great detective and park ranger. The plots are realistic, the character is real and you can't go wrong. I have read and listened and I love the narrator...
Happy reading.
June 16, 2020
I always think of my mom when I read Nevada Barr books. She got me hooked on the series. This is a good, quick read. Classic Anna Pidgeon mystery
July 11, 2017
A good mystery with some interesting plotting and beautiful description of the setting, but it's bogged down by a lame subplot and too many scenes that don't contribute to the storyline. A good editor probably would have cut about 50 pages.
Friends have repeatedly urged me to read Nevada Barr's series of books about park ranger Anna Pigeon, a pro at firefighting and an amateur sleuth, so I picked this one up at a used book store because the setting seemed intriguing. Anna is part of a crew making big bucks working fire suppression on Cumberland Island, which lies just off the Georgia coast. Barr's depiction of the island's natural wonders is well done, particularly in the opening scene where Anna gets drafted to help a surly biologist who's monitoring the loggerhead turtles laying eggs on the beach.
Most of the fire suppression duty is dull routine, just patrolling for any signs of flame. Then a drug interdiction plane crashes, killed both people on board. One of them is the park's sworn law enforcement officer, and the cause turns out to be sabotage. Meanwhile a hiker is shot in the leg for no apparent reason.
Eventually Anna pieces together what happened, but to get to the exciting conclusion you have to wade through an awful lot of scenes that don't really add anything to the plot. In particular, there are a couple of scenes where Anna strips naked and goes for a swim at night. Those scenes, while well-written, were fairly pointless. There's another scene where she's sitting on some steps naked for no apparent reason, and as a result can't catch the person who vandalizes her truck. That made even less sense. And later, when Anna's wrapping up the case, she never goes back to explain why the killer vandalized the truck, which means the scene was in there for no real reason at all.
Several chapters concern Anna's sister Molly getting death threats, and Anna's FBI boyfriend helping her figure out where they're coming from and then falling for Molly. Those chapters really bogged down the book and struck me as unnecessary. The FBI boyfriend seemed particularly unreal, by the way, compared to the guys on Anna's fire crew.
Overall I liked the book, particularly the way Barr wrapped it all up, but I thought she should have stuck to the main plot and wound it up a lot quicker. I now want to see if Anna ever did a stint at a national park in Florida.
Friends have repeatedly urged me to read Nevada Barr's series of books about park ranger Anna Pigeon, a pro at firefighting and an amateur sleuth, so I picked this one up at a used book store because the setting seemed intriguing. Anna is part of a crew making big bucks working fire suppression on Cumberland Island, which lies just off the Georgia coast. Barr's depiction of the island's natural wonders is well done, particularly in the opening scene where Anna gets drafted to help a surly biologist who's monitoring the loggerhead turtles laying eggs on the beach.
Most of the fire suppression duty is dull routine, just patrolling for any signs of flame. Then a drug interdiction plane crashes, killed both people on board. One of them is the park's sworn law enforcement officer, and the cause turns out to be sabotage. Meanwhile a hiker is shot in the leg for no apparent reason.
Eventually Anna pieces together what happened, but to get to the exciting conclusion you have to wade through an awful lot of scenes that don't really add anything to the plot. In particular, there are a couple of scenes where Anna strips naked and goes for a swim at night. Those scenes, while well-written, were fairly pointless. There's another scene where she's sitting on some steps naked for no apparent reason, and as a result can't catch the person who vandalizes her truck. That made even less sense. And later, when Anna's wrapping up the case, she never goes back to explain why the killer vandalized the truck, which means the scene was in there for no real reason at all.
Several chapters concern Anna's sister Molly getting death threats, and Anna's FBI boyfriend helping her figure out where they're coming from and then falling for Molly. Those chapters really bogged down the book and struck me as unnecessary. The FBI boyfriend seemed particularly unreal, by the way, compared to the guys on Anna's fire crew.
Overall I liked the book, particularly the way Barr wrapped it all up, but I thought she should have stuck to the main plot and wound it up a lot quicker. I now want to see if Anna ever did a stint at a national park in Florida.
March 11, 2018
This is my fourth book in the Anna Pigeon series, and I find them all to be fun, easy reads. I enjoy the way Nevada Barr sets each book in a different National Park. And my experience has been that it is very difficult to guess the ending; after reading 90% of the book, there are still a host of believable suspects. This story is set on Cumberland Island, the barrier island off the coast of Georgia which is directly north of where we live on Amelia Island, Florida. We have visited Cumberland, but I did not appreciate how big it is, and how little of it we had actually seen. In this story, Anna is trying to solve the mystery of an airplane crash on the island. The cast includes others on her fire surveillance team, a professional crash investigation team, various rangers, and several other inhabitants of the island. The mystery kept me involved. As with John Grisham books, the stories tend to be somewhat similar, so I try to leave a gap between books. But I definitely enjoyed it and will read other books by Nevada Barr.
May 2, 2020
Author Nevada Barr has created a great combination in Ranger Anna Pigeon novels all set in various US National Parks. Endangered Species is set in Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia. Cumberland Island is the southernmost of the Georgia Sea Islands. Anna is sent there on a temporary assignment to join a fire prevention crew. Anna is trained as a law enforcement Ranger but she, like all National Park Service Rangers is a firefighter as well. When the crash of of a drug interdiction plane with a ranger aboard turns out to be sabotage Anna sets out to find who did this. She finds that a park employee has been secretly growing marijuana on park land and suspects that they grower was the one who sabotaged the plane. Was he the killer or is there someone being overlooked? While she digs into the mystery she also struggles with her relationship with Frederick, her FBI agent friend who wants her to move to Chicago to be with him. Anna wants to stay in the wildness of her beloved parks. Who will prevail FBI agent Fred or the natural world? I still have not seen all the national parks, these books really make me want to see more.
June 22, 2019
Cumberland Island. Off the Georgia coast, sprinkled with decaying mansions and home to sea turtle eggs in the right season. Anna Pigeon is on a fire presuppression crew, which means she keeps an eye out for fires. Patrols the island regularly.
It is on one of these patrols that Anna and her partner see smoke. It's a small plane, downed, containing the pilot and the chief ranger. The two rush to the rescue but it's too late for the two men.
It isn't long before sabotage is discovered. Somebody wanted that plane to go down. Was it to stop the pilot from discovering marijuana fields? Was it to cover up some financial fiddling? Is there a more personal reason? Anyone on the island had access to the plane, so there is no shortage of suspects.
With and without official sanction, Anna is on the case. She is a law enforcement officer, but she frequently goes out on her own, against ranger practice and rules. She puts herself in precarious predicaments and even then doesn't have the whole answer.
As always, I enjoy the introduction to National parks I have not seen, and Barr's visual descriptions. I like Anna's character: determined, compassionate, thoughtful, and a bit reckless. I like that she cares about animals. I like the convoluted plots that twist one into knots as one red herring after another surfaces.
Well plotted, with good characters and great scenic value.
It is on one of these patrols that Anna and her partner see smoke. It's a small plane, downed, containing the pilot and the chief ranger. The two rush to the rescue but it's too late for the two men.
It isn't long before sabotage is discovered. Somebody wanted that plane to go down. Was it to stop the pilot from discovering marijuana fields? Was it to cover up some financial fiddling? Is there a more personal reason? Anyone on the island had access to the plane, so there is no shortage of suspects.
With and without official sanction, Anna is on the case. She is a law enforcement officer, but she frequently goes out on her own, against ranger practice and rules. She puts herself in precarious predicaments and even then doesn't have the whole answer.
As always, I enjoy the introduction to National parks I have not seen, and Barr's visual descriptions. I like Anna's character: determined, compassionate, thoughtful, and a bit reckless. I like that she cares about animals. I like the convoluted plots that twist one into knots as one red herring after another surfaces.
Well plotted, with good characters and great scenic value.
April 17, 2018
This is Nevada Barr's fifth mystery set in United States National Parks and it is her best one yet. I am reading these books in order of publication as a tribute to our endangered parks.
Park ranger Anna Pigeon has been sent for a 21 day assignment on fire detail to Cumberland Island Seashore off the coast of Georgia. She is bored, the bugs are biting and she is counting the days. The most excitement so far is the arrival of the endangered loggerhead turtles, come to lay their eggs in the sand.
Until a plane crashes in the palmetto stands near the wilderness section of the island. Though Anna and the crew quickly extinguish the resulting fire, both the pilot and his passenger are dead. All the usual experts arrive to investigate but naturally Anna gets involved. Within a day or two she has uncovered enough suspicious details to make a long list of suspects in what amounts to murder accomplished by tampering with the plane.
The wife of the passenger who is within a week of delivering her first baby, the biologist protecting the turtles who appears to be addicted to cocaine, the pilot with a history of wild antics, are only three of quite a few more.
As Anna doggedly works to sort out the clues while sticking with her new sobriety, her boyfriend Stanton, the FBI guy from the last two books, is helping Anna's sister Molly in New York. Molly has received a couple death threats. She and Stanton are also checking each other out with regards to Anna's intentions towards the agent. Stanton finds himself highly attracted to Molly.
Anna does solve the mystery for which she gets little credit though at least she emerges from her escapades alive. I have a feeling she will be looking for a new boyfriend in the next book.
I say it is Nevada Barr's best yet in the series because of the intricate plotting, some of her most unique characters, and the steady suspense of the story. The turtles are pretty cool too.
May 14, 2019
With each book that I read in this series, I enjoy them more and more! Spoiler alert...Once you get to the last 100 or so pages you can't put the books down so, be prepared to stay up late or start reading earlier :)
November 21, 2022
Did Nevada Barr even write this one? First off, it was super short and the plot never seemed to develop. Anna seemed like a completely different character from the last book. All the characters were weak in this one. If I had picked this book up first I would never read another Nevada Barr book.
December 27, 2017
Another great book in this series.
April 20, 2025
unremarkable
Read
September 5, 2025the audiobook narration on this one was terrible. where was Barbara? 😭
December 18, 2021
This book was a bad acid trip and a half and that’s all I’ll say. Definitely my least favorite book by Nevada Barr to date 😅
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