THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607220215
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL ROACH
LENGTH: 31 lines
FIRESTORM
NEVADA BARR
G.P. Putnam's Sons. 320 pp. $21.95.
Ranger Anna Pigeon is back in another murder mystery from Nevada Barr - her fourth - set in the national parks. A group of rangers and volunteers gamely fights a raging forest fire in northern California, and one of the crew is murdered.
Firestorm is Barr's most vivid novel yet. A camp medic and security officer, Pigeon manages to hustle people into shelters as the fire burns through Lassen Volcanic National Park. Then while waiting for a delayed rescue, she sets out to find who plunged a knife into the dead crew member's back.
Barr's novels have an authenticity borne of Barr's real-life career as a park ranger. Her alter ego, Pigeon, a widow nearing 40, is a delightfully complex character, introspective, stoical and ecologically concerned. Barr brings back Frederick Stanton, a middle-aged FBI agent who is smitten with Anna. He is forced to operate from afar as the firefighting crew is isolated.
How Anna copes with the fire and sorts out the murder suspects makes for tense, suspenseful reading. by CNB