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    Hunting Season
    Hunting Season
    Hunting Season
    Audiobook10 hours

    Hunting Season

    Written by Nevada Barr

    Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When Park Ranger Anna Pigeon answers a call to historic Mt. Locust, once a producing plantation and inn on Mississippi's Natchez Trace Parkway, the last thing she expects to encounter is a naked and very dead man. His body bears what looks like the brutal scars from an SM ritual gone terribly wrong. When the deceased turned out to be the brother of a candidate for the office of local sheriff, a host of cover-ups, hidden agendas, old allegiances and buried secrets begins to emerge. Follow Anna as she fights for her life in this intensely suspenseful, and exquisitely written tour-de-force of modern mystery writing.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 24, 2008
    ISBN9781440781988
    Hunting Season
    Author

    Nevada Barr

    NEVADA BARR is a novelist, actor, and artist best known for her New York Times bestselling, award-winning mystery series featuring Anna Pigeon. A former National Park Service Ranger, she currently lives with her husband in New Orleans, Louisiana.

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    Reviews for Hunting Season

    4.5/5

    13 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I always enjoy the books about Anna Pigeon, the National Park Ranger. I liked the last one, Blood Lure better.
    • 3/5
      The tenth Anna Pigeon mystery is set in the Natchez Trace Parkway (like the earlier “Deep South”) and involves a dead body found in unusual circumstances, a vandalized slave burial ground, murderous deer poachers and a truck that wants to play destruction derby with our heroine. Themes from the previous nine installments are continued, as this series increasingly becomes a domestic mystery, focused on Pigeon’s private life as well as the case at hand. I don’t mind this, as I found the progression natural, but from the perspective of a new reader it may be distracting and uninvolving.My major issue with this book is that it’s light on the mystery. Barr writes effectively in the “Oh my God how will Anna survive?” mode, making some parts fine page-turners, but the whodunit quotient is pretty low. Second, I just don’t find the Natchez Trace to be as effective setting as the other National Park units that have served as settings in the Pigeon series – at its core, it’s just a small town and rural South locale, with no particular dramatic backdrops for the action.I’ve given the book three stars – if you’re a completist with your mystery favorites, don’t pass this by, but if you’re not, there are better books in the series.
    • 4/5
      National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon is called to a historic plantation house situated within the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. The near-naked body of a man has been discovered in the house and at first sight it would appear that Doyce Barnett might have been indulging in some peculiar sexual exploits. Barnett’s brother Raymond however is the town’s undertaker and candidate for Sheriff and as well as involving himself unnecessarily in the investigation he puts pressure on to ensure the more salacious details of his brother’s death do not become public. However it soon becomes evident that there is much more to worry about than Doyce’s presumed proclivities and Anna has to fight for her life more than once.

      Barr does a brilliant job creating her settings, this time the deep South of America which I have not visited in real life but now feel like I might recognise were I to travel there. Her descriptions of the park’s landscape as the season moves from autumn to winter and the broader depiction of the people and their shared history combine to provide a superb sense of what is a completely foreign place to me.

      But Hunting Season offers more than an exotic location. The plot is well-constructed and genuinely suspenseful and draws in several themes of interest beyond the whodunnit element of the story. For example through the eyes of one of Pigeon’s two staff, a black man called Barth Dinkins, we see how the impact of the area’s past, specifically its slave ownership and racism, is still felt today. I admire Barr for cleverly weaving this into her story rather than inserting some kind of message as a politically correct battering ram. Dinkins’ efforts to uncover the histories of those buried at a local slave cemetery and even his relationship with Pigeon which is awkward due to all their differences offer a really compelling thread within the story. There are other equally engaging storylines including Anna’s ongoing battle with the entrenched misogyny displayed by a section of the male population, not least of which is her other staff member, Randy Thigpen. The depiction of a strong, capable woman like Anna still being in peril purely because she is a woman is done in such a way that I’m sure most female readers would do as I did and recall some situation in their own lives that had similar overtones. I was almost surprised when the mystery itself was solved as I was completely engrossed in the lives that Barr has depicted here.

      As already mentioned Anna is a terrific character of the sort that should be shared with young women everywhere. She is imperfect but interesting because of that and does have a feminine side, though not the fondness for high heels that women are thought to have as a birthright. Here she is developing a relationship with Paul Davidson a Sheriff from another part of the State who also happens to be a priest which offers yet another angle of interest as Anna is an avowed atheist. The other people in the story are well drawn too, whether they are characters taking centre stage like her two rangers or have a relatively minor role to play like the woman who discovers Doyce’s body. Barr creates real people not mere two-dimensional fictions.

      My minor quibbles with the book revolve around my never-ending confusion with the various layers of legal jurisdiction that are depicted in American crime fiction (I’ve still no idea which branch of which service overrides the other in this book) and a slight disappointment over the-Anna-in-peril scenario towards the end (though it’s not nearly as bad as many other books). Overall though this is a first-rate novel with lots of bonuses on top of the very well crafted mystery.

      What about the audio book?

      It’s no surprise that Barbara Rosenblat has won many accolades (including 6 Audie Awards) for her narration. Her use of accents, tone and inflection to provide a the wide range of characterisations demanded by this novel is superb. So far she has not recorded the latest book in this series but when she does (fingers crossed) it will be an automatic buy for me.

      Rating 3.5/5
    • 4/5
      Anna Pigeon is a park ranger on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. When the “death do us part” vows at a wedding she’s attending bring back memories of her husband’s death years earlier, she’s not all that unhappy to be beeped about a bizarre discovery. The nude body of Doyce Barnette has been found on park grounds in the restored plantation home, specifically on the bed in Grandma Polly’s room. At the outset, it appears he’s been involved in some kind of sexual activity that went awry, strangling him. In addition to working with county sheriff Clintus Jones to solve the murder, Ranger Pigeon has lots more on her plate: poachers for one. One of her deputies is distracted by his efforts to properly identify the bodies in the plantation’s slave cemetery; another deputy is just plain hostile, unhappy working for a woman. And Ranger Pigeon is wondering where her relationship with a married Episcopal priest/law enforcement officer is headed. In addition, Doyce Burnette’s brother Raymond is running for county sheriff against Jones and both Raymond and his rifle-toting mother are being evasive when questioned about the victim’s activities, as are the Doyce’s poker buddies. Some mystery reading friends are big fans of Nevada Barr, but I had never read any of her books before Hunting Season. I really liked the character of Anna Pigeon – she seemed very realistic, as did her dialogue. The narrative seemed a bit wordy – Ms. Barr managed to use the words lugubrious and avuncular in one sentence – and at times that wordiness was a bit tedious. Although the book was a pleasant enough read, but I didn’t enjoy it enough to run out and buy all the earlier Anna Pigeon books. Not having read any others, I can’t evaluate whether this was better or worse than others in the series. Review based on publisher- or author-provided review copy.
    • 5/5
      Excellent, as always. I particularly like the ones set in Mississippi like this one--I love her compassionate and subtle understanding about Southern culture.
    • 4/5
      This is the second Anna Pigeon mystery set on the Natchez Trace, the first being Deep South, which I read just a week ago. This one is set about 10 months after Anna moved to Natchez Trace to take a supervisory position. She oversees two rangers, Bartholomew Dickin and Randy Thigpen. When she started as their supervisor both men were downright insubordinate. However, Barth helped in the murder investigation in Deep South and is now a supporter of Anna and even a friend. Randy still remains difficult but he only has a few months to go to his retirement and then Anna will be free of him. Sherriff Paul Davidson and Anna still have a romance going but Paul is having trouble getting a divorce from his wife and he and Anna haven’t been broadcasting their relationship.In fact, when the book opens Anna is in church watching Paul perform a marriage ceremony for his deputy. Her pager vibrates and once Anna checks the message she realizes she won’t be attending the wedding breakfast. A dead body has turned up in one of the buildings at Mt. Locust which is in her jurisdiction and the circumstances make it pretty clear the corpse was a victim of homicide. Dressed in her finery Anna goes to Mt. Locust to investigate. The park employee who found the body when she opened up is almost in hysterics but calms down as Anna talks to her. Once the sherriff (not Paul because this is in another jurisdiction) and coroner attend the body is identified as a Doyce Barnette, a local man who everyone agrees isn’t too bright but doesn’t have an enemy in the world. What is truly bizarre is the marks on the body that make it look like he was involved in some kind of kinky sex act. Doyce’s nearest kin are his younger brother, Raymond, and his aged mother. Anna and Sherriff Clintus Jones go to tell Raymond but find out that he has already been notified by the coroner. Raymond will break the news to “Mama” Barnette and Anna and Clintus go along, mostly because Doyce lived with his mother in an old manor house that is actually very close to Mt. Locust. Anna and Clintus get there first and almost get buckshot in their rear for their troubles because Mama is a racist and Clintus is black. Once Raymond arrives he defuses the situation and Anna is able to question Mama a bit and check out his room. There is a message on the answering machine from Herm asking if Doyce is going to show up for their weekly poker game. So the hunt is on for Herm and the poker buddies.In the meantime, it is hunting season and Anna believes that some poaching is being done in the park. She arranges with Randy to ambush the hunters but when she gets to the location the hunters are waiting for her and appear to be going to rape and/or shoot her. Randy is nowhere in evidence and Anna has to flee for her life. Randy does eventually show up and run them off but he insists they were just having fun with her. Anna is not so sure and vows to find out who the hunters were.That’s just the first of three times that Anna has to fight for her life. Fortunately, she is blessed with superior intelligence and wiry strength (and as many lives as a cat). Both the mysteries get solved at the end of the book and, without spoiling the ending (well, maybe spoiling it just a bit) let’s just say Randy Thigpen won’t be bother Ranger Pigeon anymore.This is the first time that I’m aware of that Barr has set two books in the same National Park. To me, that was a bit of a let down because one of the things I like about these books is the chance to get to know more about some of the great parks in the USA. It looks like the next book takes us to new territory but I do wonder what that is going to do to Anna’s blossoming romance. I guess I’ll have to read the next one soon and find out.
    • 5/5
      Ranger Ana Pigeon and an accidental death during a poaching.