Burn

Starred review from June 21, 2010
Barr's outstanding 16th Anna Pigeon novel (after Borderline) takes the National Park Service ranger to the urban wilderness of post-Katrina New Orleans, where the Jazz National Heritage Park preserves the Big Easy's music. Anna comes to believe that a creepy neighbor, Jordan, one of the "gutter punks" who roam the city, is a pedophile. But Jordan turns out to have another side, and his link with Clare Sullivan, a Seattle actress whose family was murdered in a fire Clare is suspected of setting, is a linchpin of Barr's skillful plot. Anna vividly maneuvers the lurid city jungle, from a Bourbon Street strip joint, where the women have formed a family, to a brothel specializing in children. Anna also learns that appearances can deceive even the most insightful of rangers. Anna's complex personality continues to elevate the series, and the ranger's sojourn to New Orleans further energizes this always reliable series. 150,000 first printing.

July 15, 2010

National Park Service Ranger Anna Pigeon works her 16th case in the most unparklike setting imaginable.

Minutes after Seattle actress Clare Sullivan awakens to find her house empty—no dog, no husband, no daughters—the building erupts in a flaming explosion. In the aftermath of the destruction, there's even worse news: One of the officers who responded to Clare's 911 call finds the charred bodies of her two girls, Dana and Victoria, dead in their beds, right where Clare had reported they weren't. Driven equally by a single clue, an overheard fragment of a cell-phone call about the "Bourbon Street nursery," and the certainty that the police will arrest her for the murders of her family members, Clare goes AWOL, hoping against hope to find Dana and Vee alive. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, Anna Pigeon (Hard Truth, 2005, etc.), who has been forced to take a leave of absence from her job on account of her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, spends the time visiting her friend Geneva Akers, a blind blues singer who performs at New Orleans' Jazz National Historical Park, only a stone's throw from Bourbon Street. It's only a matter of time before Anna's story intersects with Clare's, and the moment of collision halfway through is the most successful surprise here. The sequel is all heartrending accounts of kidnapped and abused children, luridly detailed adventures among the Big Easy's demimondaine, and a climactic assault on a pedophile brothel—sturdy stuff, every bit of it, but nothing that plays to Barr's unmatched gift for linking Anna's inner turmoil to the great outdoors.

An intense but conventional actioner whose two heroines aren't nearly as compelling as Anna's solo turns.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2010
Our favorite park ranger is back. On administrative leave after her adventures in Texas's Big Bend National Park ("Borderline", Anna Pigeon visits a friend who works at the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. Soon Anna is involved with a mysterious character named Jordan who is not what he appears to be. Their hunt for two missing children leads them into the seedy underworld of sex trafficking and corrupt politicians. As always, Anna is in the thick of things, but her years of law enforcement training and work in the great outdoor parks do not fully prepare her for the wilderness of the urban scene and its inhabitants. Nonetheless, Anna prevails. Unlike in other Barr novels, the park plays a very minor role, but the excitement reigns with a multilayered story, nonstop action, and attention-grabbing characters. VERDICTMaking her Minotaur debut, Barr has written another hit. Her fans will devour this. [Seee Prepub Mystery, "LJ"4/1/10; 150,000-copy first printing; library marketing campaign.]—Patricia Ann Owens, Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel, IL

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2010
In her new novel, the wildly popular Barr takes her crime-solver, park ranger Anna Pigeon, out of her element. Previous installments in the series have found Anna moving from one national park to another, solving the crimes that seem to follow her from place to place, but this time she is in New Orleans, staying with a friend, when, believe it or not, somebody tries to put a hex on her. Anna soon suspects that her friends tenant, an abundantly off-putting fellow named Jordan, might have something to do with itbut why? This is not the first time the author has taken Anna out of her usual rustic settings (1999s Liberty Falling, for instance, is set in New York), but regular readers need not worry: Barr isnt merely rehashing big-city themes shes tackled before. Theres a reason why this story needs to be set in the Big Easy, and Barr develops the narrative carefully, never letting the eerie black-magic elements overshadow her solid and suspenseful plotting. A definite winner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)