Endangered Species [Import] [Hardcover]

Nevada Barr (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 354 pages
• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing; New Ed edition (August 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747218234
• ISBN-13: 978-0747218234
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,924,342 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

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suspenseful, Fun, July 9, 2002

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Endangered Species (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Nevada Barr is not above a bit of sly humor now and then, and in "Endangered Species," she indulged herself a bit, to our benefit.

In this adventure, ranger extraordinaire Anna Pigeon is on temporary fire-prevention duty at Cumberland Island National Seashore Park, off the Georgia Coast.

Wilderness-lover that she is, Anna is having some trouble with the habitat: ticks, chiggers, huge golden orb spiders, a mythically gigantic alligator who is not above taking a bite of a human, and all sorts of other creepy crawlies are part of the venue. And the people aren't much better. There's an equally creepy crawly and very surly biologist whose mission in life is to Save the Turtles (by helping them lay their eggs and get back to the sea safely), an impossibly pregnant and very weepy wife who may or may not be involved in nefarious deeds, two vintage WWII ladies who take no nonsense, and an adorable pet fawn named Flicka who thinks he's a dog.

It was only with Flicka that I took issue. Where was Barr's heretofore wonderful editor? This fawn is very much a boy--"Flicka," as anyone who read the book in childhood can tell you, is Swedish for "Little Girl." But enough trivia.

When a small plane crashes in the heavily forested part of the island, Anna and crew suspect sabotage. Is there a drug ring operating in this turtles' paradise? And if so, who is involved enough to want to murder the pilot and passenger? Anna sets off to solve the mystery--and winds up inhaling an entire huge cash crop of marijuana, truly one of the funniest predicaments in any mystery book I can remember in recent years. Our intrepid ranger is in grave danger, either from the criminals or from a terminal high, one isn't sure.

As for Anna's sometime swain, the FBI Agent once known in an earlier book as "Fred the Fed," we see another, less attractive side of this previously likeable guy. Can you say....Midlife Crisis? His sudden adolescent crush on Anna's sister Molly (whom we finally meet in person) is just...well, too too. Anna deserves better.

But I digress. This is a fast, fun entry in the Anna Barr series. Read and enjoy

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A mysterious gender change!, August 13, 2000

By 

Sheila L. Beaumont (South Pasadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Endangered Species (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

As always, Nevada Barr, a former park ranger, delivers wonderfully vivid descriptions of the great outdoors; an abundance of colorful, well-drawn characters; a thoughtful and courageous female sleuth; an inside look at the National Park Service; and an intricate and suspenseful mystery. However, the most mysterious thing about "Endangered Species," set on an island off the coast of Georgia and involving the investigation of a plane crash caused by sabotage, is that the paperback has been extensively revised from the hardcover. Namely, a major character, an exceedingly unpleasant, repulsive person, has undergone a sex change! In the hardcover, Marty is a woman in her 50s; in the paperback, Marty is a man in his 30s. It's not just a matter of changing pronouns; dialogue and descriptions are altered too. For example, in the original version, Marty's long hair is "worn in pigtails like an aging Pippi Longstocking's"; in the revision, it's "worn in pigtails like Willie Nelson in his heyday." There must have been a compelling reason for such changes, since ordinarily paperback publishers don't even bother to fix obvious errors, such as referring to someone by the wrong name. I think the character works somewhat better as a woman, but whichever version you read, you'll likely find it a good, absorbing, entertaining whodunit.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Marking time between "Firestorm" and "Deep South", August 21, 2001

By 

Richard A. Lovett (West Coast, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Endangered Species (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

This story's a bit of a mess. There are too many characters to keep straight, none of the great set pieces such as the motorboat chase in "A Superior Death," and a distinctly "who cares" attitude about the eventual unmasking of the villain. Just as Cumberland Island is a backwater in the National Park System, this book is a backwater in the Anna Pigeon series. Anna spends the story trying to figure out what to do about a difficult personal relationship, and Barr spends it as a combination of revisiting old ground (fire fighting) and gearing up for a serious foray into the southern parks. Read "Firestorm" for a better story of fire fighting, and skip to "Deep South" for a better-developed take on the southern parks. Still, even a ho-hum Anna Pigeon mystery is good enough to keep the pages turning.