Anna Pigeon, a park ranger at Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, is a woman on the mend. She's a widow, she's battling alcohol dependence, and she's recently changed jobs. Despite her pain, she reaches tentatively toward Stacey Meyer, a ranger trainee who has also endured his share of middle-aged pain. Shortly after he mishandles a crisis that results in a child's death, Stacey himself is found dead. Suicide? Anna thinks it unlikely. Murder? Possibly, but who and why? When the husband of another park employee is killed in a suspicious car wreck, the case takes on broader implications.
In her second appearance, after Track of the Cat , National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon is posted to an island in Lake Superior, where her interest in wildlife is fully engaged by the local population of humans. Two scuba-diving tourists exploring an old, submerged wreck discover a recent addition: the body of Denny Castle, who ran a commercial diving concession in the park. This makes Anna uneasy about the mysterious disappearance of Donna Butkus, wife of fellow ranger Scotty Butkus.
Fleeing New York to find refuge as a ranger in the remote backcountry of West Texas, Anna Pigeon stumbles into a web of violence and murder when fellow park ranger Sheila Drury is mysteriously killed and another ranger vanishes.
