Firestorm [Hardcover]

Nevada Barr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 1996

In her fourth mystery, park ranger Anna Pigeon and her companions discover a slain firefighter in a Northern California park, sending them on a search for a murderer in the midst of a ravenous winter firestorm. 35,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (March 19, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039914126X
• ISBN-13: 978-0399141263
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #623,687 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

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fire everywhere -- no one is safe!, June 24, 2000

By 

Victoria Tarrani "writer, editor, artist, des... (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

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

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Uncompelling lifeboat-type story, November 18, 2007

By 

Steven Sabin (Lake Tahoe, NV USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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

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.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hot, Hot, Hot in Barr's best novel - a 'locked room mystery', June 16, 2002

By 

cousette copeland "codyhaha" (santa clara, california USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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

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!