13 1/2: A Novel [Audiobook, CD, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Nevada Barr (Author), Dan John Miller (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 2009

In New Orleans' French Quarter, a tarot card reader told Polly Deschamps -- runaway daughter of "trailer trash" -- that she would be a success. Thirty years later, Polly is a respected professor of literature with a safe life for herself and her two daughters. Butcher Boy, so dubbed by a horrified community in Minnesota following a 1970s murder spree, was released on his seventeenth birthday, shook the snow from his boots and headed south. New Orleans, a Mecca for runaways then and now, offers sanctuary but never forgiveness. When Polly falls in love with Marshall Marchand, a restoration architect, shadows of the past rise out of the poisoned ground of New Orleans as thick and deadly as the toxic waters of the flood. Like history, some crimes are doomed to repeat themselves. Evil stays the same, only the victims’ names change. As two broken pasts collide in an uncertain present, Polly is determined that her children’s names will never be on that list.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Reaching beyond her successful Anna Pigeon series (Borderline, etc.), bestseller Barr comes up with the brass ring: a stand-alone psychological thriller with grit, teeth and heart. At 15, Polly Farmer escapes an alcoholic mother and a trailer-park no-future, hitchhikes to New Orleans and makes a life for herself as an English professor. Polly, divorced with two daughters, romantically intersects with handsome restoration architect Marshall Marchand—who's really Dylan Raines, who was incarcerated as the 11-year-old Butcher Boy who axe-murdered his parents 25 years earlier in Minnesota. As Barr artfully unfolds this mystery of wickedness and pain in eerie post-Katrina New Orleans, she tackles a multitude of societal evils, from psychiatric drug abuse to the juvenile justice system, but her central conflict, Polly's fierce determination to keep her daughters safe while trying to believe in the man she loves, makes this a terrifying, utterly convincing glimpse into the abyss. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

In a departure from her Anna Pigeon adventure novels, Barr has penned a thriller that delves deep into her characters' dark psychologies and traumas. As in her popular series, this dual narrative features a gripping plot, polished writing, and an element of suspense. At its center, however, 13 1/2 focuses on the power of love; the reconciliation of shaky relationships—and truths—between husbands and wives, brothers, and friends; and the shaking out of past demons. Critics were also pleased to read about fascinating, real-life murders. In sum, 13 1/2 "shows a new side of Barr's storytelling talents" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged; Unabridged edition (September 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1441800514
• ISBN-13: 978-1441800510
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,643,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nevada was born in the small western town of Yerington, Nevada and raised on a mountain airport in the Sierras. Both her parents were pilots and mechanics and her sister, Molly, continued the tradition by becoming a pilot for USAir.
Pushed out of the nest, Nevada fell into the theatre, receiving her BA in speech and drama and her MFA in Acting before making the pilgrimage to New York City, then Minneapolis, MN. For eighteen years she worked on stage, in commercials, industrial training films and did voice-overs for radio. During this time she became interested in the environmental movement and began working in the National Parks during the summers -- Isle Royale in Michigan, Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, Mesa Verde in Colorado, and then on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.
Woven throughout these seemingly disparate careers was the written word. Nevada wrote and presented campfire stories, taught storytelling and was a travel writer and restaurant critic. Her first novel, Bitterweet was published in 1983. The Anna Pigeon series, featuring a female park ranger as the protagonist, started when she married her love of writing with her love of the wilderness, the summer she worked in west Texas. The first book, Track of the Cat, was brought to light in 1993 and won both the Agatha and Anthony awards for best first mystery. The series was well received and A Superior Death, loosely based on Nevada's experiences as a boat patrol ranger on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, was published in 1994. In 1995 Ill Wind came out. It was set in Mesa Verde, Colorado where Nevada worked as a law enforcement ranger for two seasons.
The rest is, shall we say, HISTORY! Nevada's books and accomplishments have become numerous and the presses continue to roll, so in the interest of NOT having to update this page, books, awards, status on the New York Times Best Seller List -- and more -- will be enumerated with the relevant books else where on this website.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lost interest about halfway through, October 10, 2009

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 13 1/2 (Hardcover)

If you're a fan of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon mysteries, you may be eagerly awaiting this book. Alas, it's totally different. It'ts almost a formulaic suspense story. The characters just weren't that interesting. We didn't get a sense of who they were and why they did what they did. Insanity as a motive is probably common in real life; in mysteries it's less compelling.

The book begins reasonably with stories of Dylan, accused of killing his family in Minnesota, and Polly, daughter of an alcoholic, abusive mother in Louisiana. Of course the reader knows the stories will come together and the surprise ending is telegraphed along the way.

We aren't told how the lead characters get to where they are. How did Polly thrive and become an English literature professor? Why does an educated woman keep seeking answers in the Tarot cards? How did Marshall grow beyond his early chiildhood incarceration? And why didn't Polly show a little more healthy curiosity after meeting this man, especially since she had daughters?

Midway through I began turning pages and then gave up altogether and peeked at the ending. It's hard to get through a book without a single appealing character.

I realize Nevada Barr is probably tired of Anna Pigeon, but she writes best when she draws on her own first-hand experience. Anna is special. The characters in 13-1/2 could come from a handful of other "psychological suspense" authors. Barr writes better than most, but she doesn't show her strength: developing three-dimensional people we can't help admiring.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 13 1/2 - A Warped Carnival, November 19, 2009

By 

Leo Rivers "Leo Rivers" (www.madimi.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 13 1/2 (Hardcover)

13 1/2

First I'm going to get the "mean but funny one line review" out of the way:

MARY HIGGENS CLARK MYSTERY FILMED BY ROB ZOMBIE!

Nevada Barr's new novel "13 1/2" doesn't succeed. But it's not for lack of trying. There are moments of intense graphic surrealism here that nevertheless are coherent and that is attributable to the fact that Nevada Barr is one of our best popular mystery novelists. There is a problem, however, with her mixture of "chick flick" and "in cold blood" genres.

A mystery has a big reveal at the ending. It does not help that halfway through the book the general nature of the twist is available. But her real problem is that holding back the unmasking meant she could not go into depth in character exposition, and that in turn meant a detachment from the characters, that in turn led to a detachment by the reader from the story.

I would've liked to have seen this book half again longer, in other words turned into a novel of character exposition. Nevada Barr has the skills to surgically reveal the layers of these kind of people. But by definition, then there would be no surprise. And there is the additional fact that people identify with human beings who have human relationships. Sociopaths have no human relationships. Sociopaths only have complexities. Complexities are inherently boring once you get the basic game. Sociopaths, in a very real sense, are not very interesting once you realize that's what your dealing with.

I give this book 3 stars out of five because that's what reviews are supposed to do. But I wrote this review mostly because she tried something interesting that didn't quite work and the reasons it didn't work are more interesting than the antagonist.

33 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ready to pull the shades, turn on the lights and stay up all night?, October 5, 2009

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 13 1/2 (Hardcover)

1970: On a rain-swept highway outside Prentiss, Mississippi, 15-year-old Polly Deschamps reaches a crossroads that will change her miserable life. She abandons her mother's car on the side of the highway, trusting the police to find and return it, recounts the $11 she stole from her mother's drunken boyfriend, steps onto the shoulder of the highway, and sticks out her thumb. Will it be Jackson or New Orleans? The trucker who pulls over tells her he's headed for Bourbon Street, which is "no place for a young white girl," so he lets her out in Jackson Square. The tarot card reader is the only woman, except for the hookers, who is visible in the darkened park, so she seats herself at the gypsy's table, and Polly's fate is sealed.

Fifteen hundred miles away, a young boy named Dylan has just been sentenced to the psychiatric facility in a juvenile detention center in Du Walt, Minnesota for taking an axe to his parents, his baby sister and the family cat. Only his brother, Richard, survived the bloodbath, and Dylan, dubbed "Butcher Boy" by the title-hungry media, sets foot on his own journey to an uncertain future as his fate is sealed as well.

Now cut to 2007: Dr. Polly Deschamps, ever hungry for knowledge and eager to lift herself out of the squalid poverty of her childhood, has worked hard, earned her way through high school and university, and is now a tenured and respected English professor at a local New Orleans college. Recently divorced with two young daughters, her social life is restricted to fellow educators until she meets Marshall Marchand, a dashing, successful architect whose company has landed a major contract to help reconstruct New Orleans following the Katrina disaster.

When Marshall and Polly first meet in Jackson Square, still her favorite haunt, he is smitten for the first time in his life. He has spent his adult years working at what he loves --- designing buildings and collecting art --- but he had not allowed himself time for a serious relationship. He and his brother, Danny, a successful owner of a chain of boutique drugstores, live in a condominium in the craftsman neighborhood of New Orleans, and the successful bachelors lead a genteel and quiet but stylish social life. Polly's appearance in Marshall's life is as alarming to Danny as it is alluring to Marshall, and Danny cautions his brother to take it slowly. Their romance leads the two lonely people on a path of horrifying discoveries that set the stage for a thriller of Shirley Jackson proportions.

Nevada Barr, who has 10 bestselling mysteries under her belt, may be familiar to readers as the creator of U.S. National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon, solver of murders in exotic wilderness settings. No stranger to building suspense and creating page-turning chase scenes with spine-chilling climaxes, Barr has broken out of the series mold with this new cast of characters. Additionally, 13 ½ goes much further as a psychological thriller than Anna Pigeon novels, as Barr delves deeply into the psyche of the young murderer through his psychiatrist, his own attempts to reconcile his crime of which he has no memory, and his surviving and overly protective brother. The killer's adult persona has grown even more devious as he matures, and Polly and her young family find themselves drawn into a deadly web of terror and deceit.

Barr diabolically pulls the reader along through enigmatic journal entries made up of personal comments about major multiple murders from years past: from serial killer Charles Starkweather, to Susan Smith and Andrea Yates (who both kill their own children), and Scott Peterson (who cold-bloodedly kills his pregnant wife). Who has written these notes and why?

Are you ready for a good, chilling read? Ready to pull the shades, turn on the lights and stay up all night? Nevada Barr is right up there with Dean Koontz, Stephen King and Thomas Harris. If you can put this book down before you've finished the last few chapters, you possess nerves of steel. Will Barr be ready to return to her Anna Pigeon series, or are there more psychological thrillers in that devious mind still waiting to be written? Either way, we're all eagerly anticipating her next book.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea