Destroyer Angel

Starred review from February 10, 2014
Bestseller Barr’s gripping 18th Anna Pigeon novel (after 2012’s The Rope) takes the National Park Service ranger on an autumn camping trip along the Fox River of the Iron Range in upstate Minnesota. Anna’s first vacation since her honeymoon three years earlier doubles as a get-together with Heath Jarrod, a paraplegic; Heath’s daughter, Elizabeth; Leah Hendricks, who designs outdoor gear; and Leah’s daughter, Katie. For Leah, the trip also is a “shakedown cruise” to test a new line of equipment to make the outdoors accessible to the handicapped. On their second night, four armed men invade the campsite while Anna is on a solo canoe float. Barr touches again on her recurring theme, that man is the biggest threat in nature, as Anna works unseen to disarm the thugs and free her friends. Barr’s gift for depicting breathtaking scenery elevates the story, as does Anna’s complex, ever-evolving personality. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency.

March 15, 2014
Park ranger Anna Pigeon faces down--or, more accurately, hides from and bedevils--an unusually dangerous criminal in upstate Minnesota's Iron Range. When you work in the national parks, what do you do with your time off? If you're Anna, you take a camping trip with your friends Heath Jarrod, a paraplegic who once saved your life, and Leah Hendricks, an outdoor gear designer, as well as their respective daughters, so Heath can test the latest equipment Leah's designed for other-abled campers. And if you're Anna, things quickly turn violent. A gun-toting heavy dubbed "the Dude" confronts the party with three equally well-armed minions and announces his plan to kidnap Leah and Katie Hendricks and kill Heath and her adopted daughter, Elizabeth. Luckily for the women, Anna happens to have stepped out for a few minutes to spend some quality time alone with nature, and although the Dude has been informed that there's a fifth woman, he's easily persuaded that she canceled out at the last minute. So begins a prolonged game of cat and mouse in which Anna, unarmed and accompanied only by Heath's elderly dog, Wily, stalks the oblivious predators and their victims, watching for her chance to disarm or kill the small-time thugs--leering Sean Ferris, witless Jimmy Spinks and gangbanger Reg Waters--or grab the brass ring by neutralizing the Dude. The formula guarantees nonstop suspense (though not so much if you're convinced that Anna and her friends will survive), but Barr (The Rope, 2012, etc.), writing as usual with welcome delicacy and feeling, works a surprising number of variations on her theme, right up to the predictable but satisfying final twist. A tour de force that's both the most one-dimensional and the most satisfying of Anna's recent adventures.

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Starred review from January 1, 2014

On a vacation from her job in Rocky Mountain National Park, park ranger Anna Pigeon anticipates a serene camping trip in Minnesota's North Woods with her friend Heath Jarrod; Heath's daughter, Elizabeth; Leah, a designer of outdoor equipment for the disabled; and her daughter Katie. Instead, Anna finds herself in an unreal, almost supernatural battle against the forces of evil as she races against time and the elements of nature to save her friends and truly be "her sister's keeper." Pushing through the woods without equipment or supplies, Anna draws upon all her wilderness knowledge and training to follow the three women who have been kidnapped by armed men moving them toward an airstrip. But why? All the women face their weaknesses and gain new awareness of their own strengths as they fight the evils that hold them captive. (Readers will remember Heath, a paraplegic woman who befriended Anna in Hard Truth.) VERDICT Once again, Barr lays down a riveting mystery and permeates the pages with scrupulous descriptions of Anna's struggle with the cold, with the night, and with the terror and fear of not rescuing her friends. [See Prepub Alert, 10/20/13; library marketing.]--Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
When her friend Heath (Hard Truth, 2005), a paraplegic, agrees to road test a wheelchair poised to revolutionize the sports-gear market, park-ranger Anna Pigeon guides Heath; her daughter, Elizabeth; the chair's designer, Leah; and Leah's daughter on a trek in Minnesota's Iron Mountains. It's all fresh air and fireside chats until four armed men suddenly appear and abduct the hikers. Anna returns from a canoe jaunt to discover her friends held at gunpoint and stays hidden so that she can track them, seizing every opportunity to help her friends. Meanwhile, Heath struggles to survive the off-trail hike and protect the girls. With no cellular reception, Anna's cunning strikes are the only hope for rescue, and she ferociously, sometimes savagely, harnesses the rules of the wild to even the odds. Anna Pigeon's eighteenth adventure is equal parts psychological thriller and wilderness-survival tale sure to please series followers with a darker, no-holds-barred look at the emotional impact of Anna's survival instinct, while beckoning newcomers with top-tier white-knuckle suspense. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: When publishers use the phrase National One-Day Laydown, they are not calling for universal nap time. The term is reserved for all-out sales blitzes ( la Harry Potter) in which a new book is made available simultaneously throughout the country. It's a testament to Barr's popularity that her new novel will be getting the one-day laydown treatment. Move your blankie, Rowling; Barr wants a nap, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)