Firestorm (Anna Pigeon Series #4)

by Nevada Barr

Overview

In award-winning and bestselling author Nevada Barr's next mystery, a raging forest fire in California's Lassen Volcanic National Park traps exhausted firefighters, including Ranger Anna Pigeon, in its midst.

But the danger doesn't end there. After the flames subside, Anna uncovers a chilling truth—two members of their group have been brutally killed. As a relentless winter storm descends, cutting them off from the outside world, Anna must navigate the treachero's terrain and unravel the mystery of a murderer in their midst. With its gripping blend of suspense, atmospheric setting, and unforgettable characters, this thrilling novel will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425220382
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/01/2008
Series:	Anna Pigeon Series , #4
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	4.22(w) x 6.68(h) x 0.84(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Formerly an actress and a park ranger, Nevada Barr is now an award-winning and New York Times–bestselling novelist and creator of the Anna Pigeon mysteries, and numerous other books and short stories. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and various pets.

Hometown:

Clinton, Mississippi

Date of Birth:

March 1, 1952

Place of Birth:

Yerington, Nevada

Education:

B.A., Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, 1974; M.A., University of California at Irvine, 1977

Website:

http://www.nevadabarr.com

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

If she'd had a foot fetish Anna would have been an extremely happywoman. Cradled in her lap was a prime example of pedis giganticus belonging to one Howard Black Elk. More mole foam than fleshwas visible.

"Fighting on slopes keeps tearing 'em off," Mr. Black Elk told her between gulps of Mountain Dew. "Anybody but you does 'em they're gone by lunch. You got the touch."

Absurd as it was, Anna took great pride in the durability of her blister dressings. Caesar's army may have moved on its stomach, but firefighters moved on their feet. After ten days, of skirmishes, the army battling California's jackknife Fire was proceeding a bit gingerly. The line queued up outside the medical, unit tent was Anna's barometer, and the pressure was rising. Sho-Rap, the Shoshone and Arapaho firefighting crew out of Montana, seemed, to suffer more thanmost. Maybe because they were big men. Even with the protective fire boots they were required to wear, gravity hit them harder.

Anna eased the ruined dressings off Mr. Black Elk's foot and examined the carnage. Black Elk was an Arapaho Indian but he wasn't with the Sho-Raps. He was a member of the San Juan crew from the southwest. "You busted open the blisters," she accused.

"Got to let 'em drain."

"No you don't. They'll get infected." She looked into the man's face to see if she was getting through to him. "Are you going to quit that?"

"You betcha."

Anna didn't believe him. She cleaned the ball of his foot and his heel with hydrogen peroxide. When he winced at the sting she said, "Serves you right."

A heady sense of Normandy, Tripoli, John Wayne and Twelve O'ClockHigh reverberated through fire camps. Like everyone else, Anna reveled in, it. A soldier's life-particularly in a war where death was highly unlikely and the battle soon over — was a life enhanced with an illusion of importance untrammeled by responsibility. Orders were simple: climb, stop and dig. Hard physical labor and the ability to sleep on rough ground were all that was asked. Anna found peace in the freedom from choices.

With great care, she began reconstructing the protective barriers of foam, Second-Skin and bandages on Mr. Black Elk's foot. The rest of San Juan Plateau crew began drifting over from the chow line to swell the ranks waiting for medical attention.

The San Juans were an interagency crew with firefighters from the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the, National Park Service.Three of the firefighters were from Mesa Verde National Park, Anna's duty station. Anna had arrived independently when the call went out for more emergency medical technicians to man the medical units.

These units provided care to the firefighters in the spike camps. As the Jackknife cut a black swath through the Caribou Wilderness and Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California, Incident Base — the maincamp housing supplies and command headquarters — needed units closer tothe fireline. Small camps, called "spikes" by firefighters though officialdom no longer used the term, were springing up like fire moss.

"You guys with blisters go ahead and take the dressings off and clean your feet with peroxide," Anna said to those waiting. "I think Stephen's got a spare bottle."'

"Go easy with the stuff," Stephen Lindstrom, the other EMT, said. "We won't have any more till tomorrow afternoon."

Lindstrom was with the Forest Service out of Reno, Nevada. When Anna and three crews had been spiked out nineteen miles from base camp, she'd begged for and gotten him. Efficient and gentle, he was one of the better EMTs she'd worked with.

"How 'bout I get you some dinner before them hogs swill it all down?"

Anna looked in the direction of the familiar Memphis plus drawl. Jennifer Short, a seasonal law enforcewent ranger from Mesa Verde, leaned against a sugar pine near the outdoor examination room Anna and Stephen had piecedtogether from a ground cloth and twelve folding chairs.

Jennifer had been on the Jackknife fire for seven days, one day less than Anna, and she was still wearing makeup. Anna couldn't help but admire her. Anybody who stuck to their beliefs under duress deserved respect The sooty fingerprints around her nose and the trails of sweat running through her dust-coated rouge only added to the effect: bloody but unbowed.

"Thanks," Anna said. "Stephen, want some supper?" Belatedly she askedJennifer, "Would you mind?"

"Why I'd just lie down and die if he said no," Jennifer said, and winked.

Dividing her time between bites and blisters, Anna managed to finish he rsupper and thirteen feet in the next hour. Kneeling at the fourteenth and last, she began unlacing a well-worn, custom-made White's fire boot. "Helps if you remove your boots for me," she said mildly.

"My feet's not what hurt."

Anna rocked back on her heels and took in the face attached to the expensive boots. "San Juan crew, crew boss, right?"

"John LeFleur." The firefighter stuck out a hand with spatulate fingers reminiscent of the toes of Amazon ram forest frogs Anna'd seen hopping through various PBS specials. She forced herself up from her knees.Cold, fatigue and hard beds were taking their toll. Getting old, shechided herself. once-hard work had made her tougher, now it only made her fired. she stuck out her hand and, tying for a pressure that was manly without being macho, took LeFleur's.

His bottom lipwas swollen and bruised, Dried blood caked where the skin had split. "Does Your face hurt?" she asked. The third-grade insult, "Because it's sure killing me," flickered nonsensically through her mind, but John LeFleur certainly wasn't hard to look at Anna had him pegged for forty-five or so — his hair was still...

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A brilliantly executed mystery." -- Washington Post Book World "A delight...it almost singes you as you turn the pages." -- Detroit Free Press

Editorial Reviews

"A brilliantly executed mystery." — Washington Post Book World "A delight...it almost singes you as you turn the pages." — Detroit Free Press

From the Publisher

Gripping. . .Harrowing. . .Brilliantly Executed.

Washington Post Book World

One Scary Book. . .Firestorm is Intense.

Orlando Sentinel

Thrilling. . .Remarkable.

New York Times Book Review

A Delight. . .A scorching, baffling tale. . .It almost singes you as you turn the pages.

Detroit Free Press

Anna Pigeon, Barr's down-to-earth heroine, is a delight, with her no-nonsense approach to crime solving and her commonsense approach to life. Anna's latest adventure takes her to northern California, where a forest fire is burning out of control. As the fire-company medic, Anna is responsible not only for battling the blaze but also for handling cuts, burns, wounds, and whatever else ails the brave band of firefighters. She's also the main security officer, which means that when tempers flare or violence threatens, Anna must cool down more than the fire. That takes some doing after one of the men is found dead with a knife thrust deep into his side. Being trapped in the camp with no food and a winter storm on the way unsettles the firefighters, especially since it's clear that one of them is a killer. It's up to Anna to find out who it is before he or she can strike again. Top-flight entertainment.

Emily Melton

Another routine assignment for National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon—doubling as medic and security for a firefighting camp fighting a blaze in California's Lassen Volcanic Park—turns into a nightmare when the snowstorm that promised relief from the flames instead whips them up into a firestorm, isolating Anna's spike camp and leaving two firefighters dead: one from the fire, a second from a knife in his back. Somebody's interrupted Leonard Nims's training as crew boss by creeping into his form-fitting one-person shelter and stabbing him to death. With no hope of quick rescue or backup investigators, Anna holds onto her sanity by wondering why anybody would commit a murder at the height of a firestorm. It's only the first tantalizing riddle she'll wrestle with, even as Frederick Stanton, the FBI agent Anna keeps running into, jets out to Lassen to brief her over the radio on the nine suspects trapped on the freezing, burned-out landscape with her. Stanton's earnest, endless, highly salient briefings are a drag, but Anna, surrounded by an exceptionally well-developed cast, shines as ranger, detective, and heroine—truly a woman for all seasons.

Anna's fourth appearance (Ill Wind, 1995, etc.) is a superior puzzler wrapped in her most exciting adventure yet: a stellar performance on every count. No matter what you read mysteries for, it's in here.

Kirkus Reviews