Product Description

A raging forest fire in California's Lassen Volcanic National Park traps exhausted firefighters, including Ranger Anna Pigeon, in its midst. Afterward, Anna finds two from her group have been killed. One a victim of the flames. The other, stabbed through the heart. Now, as a rampaging winter storm descends, cutting the survivors off from civilization, Anna must uncover the murderer in their midst.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42449 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780425220382
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
A raging fire in a national park seems an unlikely setting for a murder, but that's exactly the circumstances that crime-fighting park ranger and medic Anna Pigeon confronts in this mystery thriller. A suspicious fire breaks loose in Northern California's Lassen Volcanic Park and Pigeon assists in battling the blaze and treating the wounds of other fire fighters. As if that's not enough, Pigeon finds herself without food and water trapped with a group of fire fighters, one of whom is a murderer. She tries to figure out who the culprit is before he, or the weather, strikes again.

From Publishers Weekly
As she's seen in her fourth spine-tingling adventure, it's hard to tell what impassions hard-nosed park ranger Anna Pigeon more?crime or grime. Fortunately, Barr (Ill Wind) has a flair for depicting both as she sets Anna to providing first aid for the crews fighting an especially nasty forest fire, probably caused by arson, in Northern California's Lassen Volcanic National Park. As if living intimately with strangers under stressful conditions weren't trouble enough, more problems flare when Anna and her EMTs must rescue a firefighter who has broken his leg. On their way back to camp, they are trapped in a firestorm?the most dangerous of all fire conditions. Anna is saved by her silver pup tent, or "shake 'n' bake," which she pulls over herself at the last minute as the fire dances on her back. One of the other medics isn't so lucky. Only it's not just bad luck. It's murder. The tension approaches unbearable when bad weather and destroyed roads trap Anna and the rest of her crew with the murderer in their midst. While Anna, with her compassion, toughness and abundant one-liners, calls Kinsey Milhone to mind, Barr's character is a true original. And for excitement, her line of work can't be beat. Mystery Guild selection; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA?Far from her base park of Mesa Verde, Anna Pigeon volunteers as a medic at a spike camp of firefighters battling the Jackknife blaze in Northern California. With the fire diminishing, the last crew is called back, but Anna, her co-medic, their litter-bound patient, and other firefighters are unexpectedly trapped in a firestorm. When the fire blazes past on its destructive trail, Anna discovers a dead firefighter in his shelter, killed by a knife. This gripping adventure is heightened by a strong sense of place. Trapped for several days in cold and fog and surviving on broiled woodchuck, Anna must determine the identity of the killer before the group is rescued. The surprising ending delivers a pretzel-shaped twist that will haunt readers.?Pam Spencer, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Fire everywhere -- no one is safe!
Anna Pigeon, Park Ranger, has been called to Northern California's Lassen Volcanic Park to fight a blaze of suspicious origin. Danger exists in the air she breathes and the exhaustion that takes a toll on all firefighters that have been brought in to save the park.

Nevada Barr convincingly shows why rangers are called from many locations and the need to work as one in the midst of a Firestorm. The problem in working as one is that there is a murderer who has no compunction about covering up the first death with more. The most intense scene is when the Firestorm is blasting down the trail and the only way to survive is as dangerous as the fire itself.

Ms. Barr is a great storyteller who writes what she knows. I have no doubt that she has experienced survival in various parks and on a myriad of projects. She brings with her the full power that a writer can when she has lived the events--perhaps not the murder itself, but survival in it rawest form.

Hot, Hot, Hot in Barr's best novel - a 'locked room mystery'
Nevada Barr has 2 books that are closed to "locked room" mysteries - that is, where the action and events are in a tightly controlled environment. Firestorm has it's events in the middle of a firestorm, on a mountain top where rescue is delayed. (Blind Descent is the other - inside a subterranean cave.)
Barr's description of the firestorm, and being trapped inside of a tiny fireproof tent are gripping! The murders are solved by Frederick and Anna. Frederick is working on the outside, and supplies info to Anna via hand radios. Anna uncovers facts and fights the growing tension between survivors who are trapped on the mountain together.
There are suspects galore - but I was totally surprized by the identity of the true murderer and Anna's judgement call in handling the murderer.
This is probably one of Barr's best novels - a "hot, hot" read!

Uncompelling lifeboat-type story
The breathless positive reviewers of this book puzzle me. Their experience was distinctly not my experience. I've read 3 of Barr's books now and this was definitely *not* the pick of the litter. At Barr's best, she's a 4. This one was somewhere between a 2 and 3...but since I can't award half stars, I'll give it a 2. This was definitely the worst of the three books by Barr I've read thus far.

Here's the plot in a nutshell.

A group of rangers including our heroine, Anna Pigeon, are brought together from various national parks and agencies to fight a fire in Lassen National Park in Northern California. When the fire unexpectedly flares, a group of 9 are caught off guard and with no path of retreat from the rapidly advancing flames. Their only hope for survival is to crawl inside their fire-proof emergency tents, burrow into the ground, and hope that the fire will literally flash over the top of them so quickly that they won't be baked to death...merely scorched.

When the inferno blasts over, it feels like hours but is just minutes. They are singed, some quite seriously, but alive. However, although 9 people crawled into tents, only 8 people emerge: one literally has a knife in his back. And, the fire has felled trees across the only road in to the area, nor will the weather allow rescue helicopters to reach them. The 8 survivors are trapped indefinitely without food as it begins to snow and temperatures begin to drop -- and one of them is a killer.

Sounds enticing enough. But the ensuing days as the 8 struggle to survive are gray, cold, eventless, and populated with miserable people struggling to maintain their sanity and civility.

Basically, that describes how I felt trying to perservere through the remainder of the book. Yeah, I made it. But it wasn't a pleasant experience.

Barr decides to make the victim in this book a man who is universally scrorned by all who know him. And in so doing, we don't care that he's dead, we don't care why he died, and we don't care who killed him. There is just no incentive for the reader here to really care about finding the killer. In fact, I just couldn't bring myself to care about *any* of the characters or details in this story, doubly sad since I live in that part of the country and many of the towns and landmarks Barr describes are my stomping grounds that would normally have been very interesting to me. Oh, and Barr -- for reasons known only to herself -- felt obliged to once again introduce a homosexual lover subplot into the story. Why she feels compelled to insert this into every story is beyond me. I think it must be some type of politically correct statement. Whatever. But I'm beginning to find it tiresome. It feels contrived and forced because it is...contrived and forced.

Anna Pigeon is a likeable enough protagonist who behaves and talks like a real person. I have no gripe with Barr's writing abilities or dialog. But the people in this story get confusing. It is hard to keep the 8 folks in this "lifeboat" type story straight. It is harder still to care about them or care about finding a resolution.

It just felt like 4 long days in the snow surrounded by blackened timbers and a bunch of people you don't like.