Track of the Cat (1993)

This series first caught my attention when I saw it was set in several different National Park Service properties. My husband and I love to visit National Parks, and have spent many a vacation and even anniversaries in one. So far, we’ve covered 14 of 58, which I don’t think is too bad seeing how we live on the east coast. What it all adds up to is me being intrigued by not only the setting of this book, but the inside look at the Park Service.

Overall, I found the book to be pretty good. Anna is surely a flawed character — commitment phobic, naturally suspicious and un-trusting, borderline alcoholic, and unable to recognize friendship when she sees it — but she is still likeable. At first, she is only concerned with Sheila Drury’s death because of its impact on the mountain lions she tracks, but eventually she realizes that it’s a story much larger than that.

I did have a few quibbles about the ending. I thought it all came about rather suddenly, like all of the pieces in Anna’s head clicked at once and she had the answer. I was a bit sad about who the culprit turned out to be, but I thought the ending wasn’t taken quite far enough. I would have liked at least an epilogue to tie up the loose ends. ( )

This is my first Nevada Barr mystery (and looks like her first too?) and I am pretty excited. She is clearly a lesbian-friendly author if nothing else since her animal-loving independent introverted kick-ass park ranger/detective heroine Anna Pidgeon has an attraction to a bisexual woman and is unfazed by it. And, the bisexual woman does not turn out to be the killer---Barr gets major points in my book for that. I love mysteries that teach me something and mysteries with a lot of atmosphere and this series has a lot of promise. There is nothing better than finding an author you like and realizing that there are a lot more books in the series! ( )

I am a huge mystery fan, and I have a great love of nature. The National Parks of America are among some of the places I love to visit the most. Therefore the Nevada Barr series featuring a National Park Ranger who solves crimes seems the perfect match for me. In The Track of the Cat, Ranger Anna Pigeon is stationed in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas, and in this beautiful setting she stumbles upon a body of a fellow ranger who appears to have been mauled to death by a puma.

I enjoyed this first entry in her series, even though I figured out who the bad guy was pretty quickly. I love the setting, and the main character, Anna seems to be a sensible, down to earth type, still recovering from the accidental death of her husband. I was also interested to read about the inner workings of the National Park System.

This was a good introduction to a promising mystery series and I intend to follow Anna Pigeon to her various postings in the scenic National Parks of America. ( )

I've been reading the Anna Pigeon series forever it seems, but in no particular order. Then I picked up a paperback copy of one I hadn't read at a book sale and just realized it was the very first Anna Pigeon mystery. I can't believe I had never read it before.

In Track of the Cat Anna is a fairly new National Park Ranger stationed at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in West Texas. She had become a ranger after her husband died in an accident in New York. Being far from that city and living in a beautiful natural setting helps, but of course doesn't bring her husband back. She still mourns.

As the story begins, Anna is completing a transect of the park looking for signs of mountain lions. Ranchers just outside the park are always complaining that lions from the park are killing their livestock, and the ranchers want to be able to hunt them. Anna loves the animals, and the park periodically does these transects to see if and where the cats are; they also have banded some of them. Anna comes to McKittrick Canyon and finds the body of another female ranger, apparently killed by a mountain lion.

Those of us who know Anna well know that she is a loner. When she needs to talk, she calls her sister, a psychiatrist in New York City. In this book though she makes a friend, which causes difficulty because the friend is also a suspect in the killing. You see, the ranger wasn't killed by a mountain lion. She was murdered.

That's all I'm going to tell you because this is every bit as good a story as the rest of the series. Once you read that first page, you're hooked and won't put the book down until the end. I always recommend Nevada Barr for readers who like strong women protagonists and masterful descriptions of nature, as well as witty internal dialogue. If you aren't an Anna Pigeon follower, please look for Nevada Barr in your local library or bookstore. ( )

From the start something irked me about the lead character, Anna Pigeon, park ranger. I think it was the hints from the beginning of a disconnect between her and people, her yearning to be solitary. This is the first in a series featuring her, so I think wanting to spend time with the character, either because she's fascinatingly complex or quirky or likable is important. The author was deft and seemingly knowledgeable about the milleu she was writing about, the West Texas wilderness. I've read Barr was herself a Park Ranger and I can believe it. The description puts you right there among the scrabble and saw-edged plants. Pigeon is making rounds in Guadalopue Mountains National Park trying to detect scat of the rare mountain lion. Then she finds the body of a fellow park ranger, Shelia Drury. And when she examines the body and finds evidence this young woman, her colleague, was mauled by a cougar, her first reaction is to damn the dead woman for being killed since it will undoubtedly result in more of the animals being hunted down and killed. Right there, on page 16, the author lost me. I guess I'm not the Sierra Club type--people who put the deaths of animals over people they know leave me cold, cold, cold. After that I just could not care about Anna Pigeon or spend another page with her. ( )