Winter Study

February 25, 2008
In bestseller Barr's chilling 14th mystery thriller to feature National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon (after 2005's Hard Truth
), Anna joins the team of Winter Study, a research project intended to study the wolves and moose of Michigan's Isle Royale National Park, the setting for 1994's A Superior Death
. Complicating the study is Bob Menechinn, an untrustworthy Homeland Security officer assigned to shadow the research. Crowded into inhospitable lodgings and persecuted by unrelenting cold, Anna is far from her comfort zone as nature turns awry with a series of bizarre events. The team stumbles upon the tracks—and the mutilated victim—of a preternaturally large, unidentified beast, and local packs of wolves descend on human-populated areas, a behavior out of step with their species. The campfire legends of youth metastasize into adult fears as Anna must piece together a connection between these anomalies while guarding herself from the strangers around her. Barr's visceral descriptions of the winter cold nicely complement the paranoia that follows the appearance of the mythic monsters at play. Author tour.

March 15, 2008
Park ranger Anna Pigeon returns to Michigan's bitterly cold, icebound Isle Royale National Park (first featured in "A Superior Death") in the 13th entry (after "Hard Truth") of Barr's National Park series. Anna has been sent to Isle Royale from her current assignment, Rocky Mountain National Park, to observe wolves, the stars of a longstanding scientific research study made possible because the park is closed from fall to late spring. Trouble is, Homeland Security wants to open up the facilities year-round owing to perceived border-security issues. When wolf researcher Katherine Huff turns up dead one night, attacked by the wolves she loved, all bets are off as to which human let her fall victim. Barr's intense closed-room drama (how can seven people get into this much trouble?) integrates winter's forcesblizzards and icewith the psychological play of ghosts and legends. Predictably, Anna unearths everyone's worst secrets and ends up fighting for her own life. It's breathtakingly improbable but tremendously satisfying, as Barr tackles human depravity head-on while introducing readers to this area's natural beauty. Recommended for all popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 12/07.]Teresa L. Jacobsen, Solano Cty. Lib., Fairfield, CA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2008
Readers whohave followedintrepid forest ranger Anna Pigeon fighting forest fires, crawling through caves, investigatingcrimes at national monuments, and tracking bears in service of our National Park system will find her back almost where she began, atIsle Royale National Park. Unlike her earlier visit (A Superior Death, 2003), however, this one takes place during the dead of winter, when the park is usually closed to all but the wolves and moose and the researchers who have been studying them in theirunique environment. This year, however, tension is high; Homeland Security may shutdown thewinter study project, which has been going on for 50 years.But Anna, in her usual role asPark Serviceinterloper-emissary (How would you like to snowshoe over rough terrain, collecting blood-fat ticks and moose piss?)suspects that theres more at stake here than the study, and when murderintrudes, she knows shes right.Theenvironmental quotient in Barrs novels is always high; the facts about wolves are fascinating, as are descriptions of frigid landscape, alternately beautiful and horrifying. Theres plenty of drama, too, as Anna finds herself alone and in danger more than once, but what many readers return to this series for is Anna herself, strong, funny, perceptive, and well aware that she is a small part ofadynamic, ever-changingnatural world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)