Nevada Barr: Deep South (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
Nevada Barr's ever-popular Anna Pigeon series is consistently praised as "exceptional" (Denver Post), "stunning" (Seattle Times), and "superb" (New York Times Book Review). In Deep South, Park Ranger Anna Pigeon heads to Mississippi, only to encounter terrible secrets in the heart of the south...

Anna Pigeon finally gives in to her bureaucratic clock-and signs on for a promotion. Next thing she knows, she's knee-deep in mud and Mississippi. Not exactly what she had in mind. Almost immediately, as the new district ranger on the Natchez Trace, Anna discovers the body of a young prom queen near a country cemetery, a sheet around her head, a noose around her neck. It's a bizarre twist on a best-forgotten past of frightening racial undertones. As fast as the ever-encroaching kudzu vines of the region, the roots of this story run deep-and threaten to suffocate anyone in the way, including Anna...

Nevada Barr: Deep South. An Anna Pigeon Novel. Berkley Books, ISBN: 0425178951 (February, 2001), 367 p., $7.99.

Nevada Barr: Deep South (USA 2000)

From the Publisher:
"What lifts the Anna Pigeon novels far above most of the other contemporary amateur sleuth mysteries is Barr's exquisite writing -- it swoops, it soars, sails then catches you unawares beneath the heart and takes your breath away, " proclaimed the Cleveland Plain Dealer of last year's Liberty Falling. In Deep South, Nevada Barr takes our breath away once again as her heroine travels cross-country to Mississippi, only to encounter terrible secrets in the heart of the south.

The handwritten sign on the tree said it all: Repent. For Anna Pigeon, this should have been reason enough to turn back for her beloved Mesa Verde. Instead she heads for the Natchez Trace Parkway and the promotion that awaits her. Almost immediately, she finds herself in the midst of controversy: as the new district ranger, she faces resentment so extreme her ability to do her job may be compromised, and her life may very well be in danger. But all thoughts of personal safety are set aside with the discovery of a young girl's body in a country cemetery, a sheet around her head, a noose around her neck.

The kudzu is thick and green, the woods dark and full of secrets. And the ghosts of violence hover as Anna struggles for answers to questions that, perhaps, should never be asked. Deep South proves that, "like the parks and monuments she writes of, Nevada Barr should be declared a national treasure" (The Bloomsbury Review).

Nevada Barr: Deep South. Putnam's, ISBN: 0399145869 (March, 2000), 340 p., $23.95.