Audio/Another very good Anna Pidgeon story. She tries to solve the apparent murder on the Natchez Trace of one of a group of hunters/poachers that it turns out hired one of her deputies to cover up the accidental death.

Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon park ranger series has drawn me in and kept me reading through ten books with her detailed descriptions of life as a park ranger (often extremely unglamorous), interesting facts about local wildlife and history, and her crazy cast of characters. In HUNTING SEASON, Anna returns to the Natchez Trace where she is the District Ranger. A body has been discovered and the circumstances of death are such that it might create a scandal for the deceased and their family. This had a well-crafted mystery drawn along both the present and past timeline and brought back characters from past books. Also interesting to see Anna’s romance finally progressing! ( )

Synopsis: 'After a season out west among killer bears (Blood Lure, 2001), Anna Pigeon, who’s made her reputation by keeping on the move, is back as District Ranger in Mississippi’s Natchez Trace National Parkway. The Natchez Trace is every bit as beautiful as ever, and insubordinate male underlings like Randy Thigpen (Deep South, 2000) still resent her every bit as much. What’s new is the crisis in her romance with Claiborne County Sheriff Paul Davidson, an Episcopal priest who’s separated, though not divorced, from his calculating wife, and the most embarrassing corpse she’s ever been called away from somebody else’s wedding to examine. Good ol’ boy Doyce Barnette, smothered and stripped to his Fruit of the Looms, has been deposited on Grandma Polly’s decorous bed at the former working plantation Mt. Locust, looking just like a beached whale with a weakness for kinky sex. The revelation is bound to heat up relations among the poker-playing buddies who solemnly alibi each other for the night Doyce died, and the race for Adams County Sheriff, since Doyce’s undertaker brother Ray, who’d hoped to replace Clintus Jones, now has to endure this final affront. Digging deeper, however, Anna finds more dark secrets, from a century-old land grab to a much more recent band of poachers. As usual, the most dangerous species in the park turns out to walk on two legs.'
Review: The more you get into this book the creepier it gets. Thankfully the bad guys get their comeuppance. This is also a rather good study of the relationships of Blacks and Whites in the old, and new, South. ( )

Park Ranger Anna Pigeon returns to face her most duplicitous foe—human nature—in Nevada Barr's New York Times bestseller, Hunting Season.


The quiet beauty of autumn on Mississippi’s Natchez Trace is swiftly shattered when Anna answers a call to Mt. Locust, once a working plantation and inn, now a tourist spot. But the man Anna finds in an old bedroom is no tourist in distress. He’s nearly naked, and very dead—his body bearing marks consistent with sex games gone awry. On a writing table nearby is an open Bible with ominous passages circled in red.

There are secrets that prominent men in this God-fearing country wish to keep under wraps—and Anna has stumbled into a nest of them.

Anna Pigeon returns to Natchez Trace, her home base, and another body lands in her bailiwick. This time it is a large man, wearing only his shorts, lying on a bed in the historical Mt. Locust Inn. He did not die there, but had to have been hauled onto that bed. Why? And where did he die? And why?

The dead man turns out to be Doyce Barnette, a well-liked somewhat simple man. Who would want to kill him?

Anna starts asking questions. First, Doyce's brother Raymond, owner of a funeral parlor. Although he appears to be upset at his brother's death, he also strikes Anna as having secrets.

From Raymond Anna questions his mother, a character out of some deep dark southern tales. And the friends Doyce apparently played poker with.

As usual, Anna finds herself out in the dark, at night, when she can't sleep, and overhears what maybe she shouldn't. Anna is not afraid of the dark, and this trait seems to serve her well in her career as ranger detective.

Anna continues to develop a relationship with a sheriff who is married (but separated). Does she do this to close down some options? Is it safer?

I continue to enjoy the aspects of our National Parks system that come to light in these mysteries. I also enjoy the edgy, touchy Anna, who is neither a bleeding heart nor a hard-ass, although she exhibits aspects of both. It is a pleasure to be working my way through this series.
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