Flashback (An Anna Pigeon Novel)
Product Type: Book
Product Price: $7.99
Manufacturer: Berkley
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Description
The five-week New York Times bestseller, now in paperback.
Reviews
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-03-10
Summary: "well done, up to Ms. Barr's best"
I have been reading Ms. Barr's books for many a year now, and always find them entertaining. I enjoy trying to decide who the culprit is before I get to the climax, and occasionally, I even figure it out. Kudo's to another well written and entertaining story.
Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2010-02-15
Summary: "Always enjoyable for her park settings and inside scoops"
Park ranger Anna is on assignment in Dry Tortugas National Park, a tiny island 70 miles south of Key West Fla., which once served as a prison / army barracks at the end of the civil war. Each chapter alternates between modern-day Anna's sleuthing, and Anna's great great aunt dealing with a crisis while living there as an army wife in the 1860's (relayed through Anna's reading of her letters). The infamous Dr Mudd was being held there and figures in the story line (he was accused of doctoring John Wilkes Booth after Booth shot President Lincoln.)
I really had to hang in there for a hundred or so pages...esp. in the present-day chapters, but then it started getting more interesting, with enough characters beginning to look potentially guilty to start building some tension. I enjoyed the way Barr led each chapter into the subsequent, cleverly blending the past and present time periods into parallel mysteries. It wasn't my favorite Nevada Barr, nothing to compare with Blind Descent or Track of the Cat, but it was a pleasant enough "beach" read for this genre.
My curiosity got the best of me halfway through the book and I researched Dr Mudd and Samuel Arnold (especially when Barr described how good-looking Arnold was!), the other Lincoln assassination conspirator imprisoned there. I pulled up fascinating information about them and Fort Jefferson on google, much exactly as the author describes it.
Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2010-02-08
Summary: "Tedious (2.5 stars)"
Well, okay, this is my fifth Anna Pigeon book and I think Barr/Pigeon are both wearing a bit thin. Plodding, tedious and ultimately unsatisfying are the three best adjectives I can apply here. I keep waiting for Barr/Pigeon to knock my socks off, but so far -- with the possible exception of "Track of the Cat" -- I find her writing to be workman-like at best and awkward at worst. Perhaps it's the whole theme of 'woman power' and the associated disdain for many of her male characters that sticks in my craw. [Perhaps she's writing for mainly the female market, and therefore by definition I am not who she is trying to please?] But in the end, it's that I am led on a long, twisted journey... with the payoff usually being a contrived and highly unrealistic (utterly fantastic, in many cases)ending. Kind of a "oh, is that what all these twists and turns were leading up to? Ho hum." or "Right. I really believe this is how this situation would play out... Not."
And the whole "women good; men bad" theme does grow stale after a while.
It's too bad, because I REALLY like the general premise of these stories and I've been to some of the national parks that serve as the backdrop. And many of the characters, including Anna herself, are vividly drawn and often quite likable. Perhaps my ego is getting in the way and I simply need something told from a more macho point of view? [Although Anna is more macho than the average man, that's for sure!]
Can anyone recommend something vastly superior to those I've already read (Flashback, Ill Wind, Track of the Cat, Winter Study and Endangered Species)? Blind Descent and Deep South seem to get high marks.
Maybe I'll give Ms. Barr and Ms. Pigeon one more shot...
Otherwise: Randy Wayne White, I'm coming home.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-01-03
Summary: "My favorite Anna Pigeon novel to date!"
In Flashback, author Nevada Barr brings National Park Service law enforcement officer (and now "Acting Supervisory Ranger") Anna Pigeon to Dry Tortugas National Park off the Florida Keys. Anna Pigeon investigates a boat fire and explosion, and things get very complicated, very quickly. Simultaneously, she receives a collection of old letters written by a Raffia Coleman to Anna's great-great grandmother. The letters deal with events that happened at Fort Jefferson (preserved in Dry Tortugas National Park) during a time when one of Fort Jefferson's (then a prison) inhabitants was Dr. Samuel Mudd, convicted of assisting John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Barr skillfully weaves these two storylines together, Pigeon's investigations and Mudd's imprisonment.
As with her other books, I am impressed at Nevada Barr's ability to capture the essence of being human. She is also very good at featuring nuggets of natural history. Here are two examples:
In a letter from Raffia Coleman to her sister - "He [Captain Coleman] was out on the coaling dock organizing a group of men to go to the neighboring keys to dig for eggs and catch turtles for meat. (Did you know that Tortuga was Spanish for tortoise? These lonely sand scraps were named for the creatures.) I am awestruck by their ponderous beauty, yet because I am also awestruck by their delicious taste, I am as eager for the hunting of them as any soldier. Turtles have the added benefit of staying fresh - a distinct problem with meats of all kinds in this heat. The hunters simply roll the turtles onto their backs, rendering them immobile till it's time to slaughter them" (p. 127-128).
As she was motoring away from Fort Jefferson, Anna Pigeon was making this observation - "Passing a sportfishing ban in Dry Tortugas National Park had caused an outcry heard all the way to Mississippi. Not killing animals in a national park was one thing, but fish? Surely it's every American boy's birthright to kill fish anywhere they are to be found. The superintendent of Dry Tortugas and Everglades had stuck to her guns and backed the unpopular ban. The results were much what the NPS had hoped they'd be. Not only were there more and bigger fish within the park boundaries, but significantly more and bigger fish were being caught outside the boundaries as well. By banning fishing in fifty thousand acres of sea, a nursery, a veritable cornucopia of fishes, had been created. None of this impressed the sportfishermen. Talk still turned ugly when the subject came up, and they still whined piteously over the inconvenience of having to go a mile or two further from their favorite anchorages to legally drop their lines in the water. Anna was firmly on the side of the fishes" (p. 157-158).
I think this is my favorite Anna Pigeon novel yet. And there are many more to read!
Here's the list of Anna Pigeon novels, and the order in which they've been published (I've starred the ones I've read to date, to remind me):
1. Track of the Cat (1993)*
2. A Superior Death (1994)
3. Ill Wind (1995)*
4. Firestorm (1996)
5. Endangered Species (1997)*
6. Blind Descent (1998)*
7. Liberty Falling (1999)*
8. Deep South (2000)
9. Blood Lure (2001)
10. Hunting Season (2002)*
11. Flashback (2003)*
12. High Country (2004)*
13. Hard Truth (2005)
14. Winter Study (2008)
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-10-18
Summary: "Flashback"
[Please note that I listened to the excellent unabridged audio version, so some names may be misspelled in this review. Also, the literal job titles may be simplified].
SETTING
"Flashback" is set in and around Fort Jefferson (a typical Federal boondoggle, obsolete before it was finished), in Dry Tortugas National Park, a small archipelago of islands, about 70 miles west of Key West, FL. The subplot is set at the same location, but in 1865, when Fort Jefferson was used as a Union prison.
CHARACTERS
In addition to Anna Pigeon (temporary superintendent), other residents (all government or quasi-government employees) at Fort Jefferson include Park Ranger Bob Shaw (and wife Theodora, aka Teddy); maintenance men William (Mack) and Daniel; and historian Duncan. Lighthouse operators Donna and Patrice live on an adjacent island where the lighthouse is located. Cliff and Linda operate the ferry to and from Key West.
Major characters in a storyline set in 1865 include Joseph Coleman (commander of Fort Jefferson), his wife Raffia (great-great-aunt of Anna), and her sister Tilly. Prisoners include Confederate soldier Noel Lane, and Lincoln assassination co-conspirators Samuel Mudd, and Samuel Arnold. The brutish Sargent Sinapse is also significant.
THE SETUP
When the superintendent of the park, Lanny Wilcox, is put on a psychiatric leave (associated with the disappearance of his mysterious beautiful young Cuban girlfriend, Theresa), Anna Pigeon takes the job temporarily.
The 1865 storyline consists of letters written by Raffia and sent to her sister (Anna's great great grandmother) Peggy, shortly after the Civil War, before the Confederate prisoners had been released. Sixteen year old Tilly had been sent to live with Raffia, apparently because she was brazenly "boy-crazy".
In the modern storyline, Bob Shaw fails to return from a night patrol by boat. He is finally found on a small island after his boat had been sunk by the explosion of a "go-fast" boat he had motored over to investigate. Anna reads Raffia's letters, and shortly thereafter, thinks that she sees the ghost of Raffia, and fears that she might be going nuts, as had her predecessor. That's the setup.
EVALUATION
The modern storyline in "Flashback" is a rich, engrossing, mystery-thriller, placed in a vivid setting, filled with a delightfully peculiar cast of characters--which must be based on real people, since they feel so genuine. This is my third reading, and the story gets better each time--I consider that very high praise. However, with each reading, I find the 1865 storyline increasingly more dreary.
CRITIQUE
The 1865 storyline places the physical setting in historical context, adding an extra dimension to the story, and provides a context for Anna's sightings of ghosts in the modern story. Otherwise the two storylines are completely independent. The alternation of stories, usually ending with"cliff-hangers", detrimentally breaks up both stories. When listening to the (unabridged) audio version, I could not avoid the suspicion that recorded tracks are missing or out of order. (They weren't)
The correct use of most spices is a light touch, such that the spices enhance the dish without obscuring the flavor of the main ingredients. In my opinion, a much shorter simpler version of the 1865 story could have been a more judicious application. For men, and other non-fans of gothic romances, I suggest reading the Wikipedia entry for "Dry Tortugas National Park", and then the novel, skipping the chapters corresponding to the 1865 story.
COMMENT
For Floridians, a "Portia tree" is the common Seaside Mahoe, a tree with large heart-shaped leaves and large hibiscus-like flowers. "Casemates" are what (at least in my experience in the U.S.) are more commonly called "casements", i.e., fortified openings in a fortress for canons. Sometimes it seems that the NPS goes out of its way to eschew regional, or even "traditional American", terminology.