by Nevada Barr
Part of Anna Pigeon, book 8
First published 2001
Anna Pigeon accepts a bureaucratic promotion and becomes district ranger on the Natchez Trace in Mississippi. The mud and humidity weren't part of her career plans. Her new job takes a deadly turn when she discovers a young prom queen's body near a rural cemetery. Someone wrapped a sheet around the victim's head and placed a noose around her neck. The crime carries disturbing echoes of racial violence from the past. Anna must navigate the tangled history beneath Mississippi's surface as she investigates. The case grows more dangerous as old secrets emerge. Like the aggressive kudzu vines choking the landscape, the truth threatens to destroy anyone who gets too close. Anna finds herself fighting both a killer and the suffocating weight of historical injustice.
Genres: american-fiction, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, fish-out-of-water
Setting: Mississippi, Natchez Trace
Period: Contemporary
352 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Berkley
Content warnings: racism, violence