Patrolling the remote West Texas backcountry, Anna’s first job as a national park ranger is marred by violence she thought she had left behind: the brutal death of a fellow ranger. When the cause of death is chalked up to a mountain lion attack, Anna’s rage knows no bounds. It’s up to her to save the protected cats from the politics and prejudices of the locals – and prove the kill was the work of a species far less rare…

I was searching for a book set in a wilderness for Halloween Bingo when I came acroos ‘Track Of The Cat‘ in my Kindle TBR. I bought it to replace my 1990s paperback copy that I released into the wild a while ago because the text was too small for me to read. My memory of the book has faded over the decades since I read it so the quality and tone of the opening paragraphs caught me by surprise:

“There hadn’t been a god for many years. Not the nightgownclad patriarch of Sunday school coloring books; not the sensitive young man with the inevitable auburn ringlets Anna had stared through in the stained-glass windows at Mass; not the many-armed and many-faceted deities of the Bhagavad Gita that she’d worshipped alongside hashish and Dustin Hoffman in her college days. Even the short but gratifying parade of earth goddesses that had taken her to their ample bosoms in her early thirties had gone, though she remembered them with more kindness than the rest.

God was dead. Let Him rest in peace. Now, finally, the earth was hers with no taint of Heaven.”

Reading this made me want to get to know Anna Pigeon. Over the next 167 pages, I came to like her a lot. Anna is a great character – a little odd – not always comfortable with herself – not always sure that she’s sane – a widow – an escapee from Manhattan sophistication to the unfiltered nature of the hight country – brave – curious about everything except the people around her – still mourning her husband – unwilling to commit to a new lover, connected to the world beyond the Park on via herManhattan-based high-priced psychiatrist sister – bad at making friends but good at getting answers to difficult questions.

The plot was mainly a framework for getting to know Anna and to share her love for the harsh beauty of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in West Texas. I’ve never been to that part of Texas but I love desert landscapes and it was a pleasure to spend time in this one.

Although Anna is a Law Enforement Park Ranger, her investigations into the death of a fellow ranger who is deamed to have been killed by a mountain lion is an off-the-books informal affair. I loved that Anna knows that she doesn’t have the skills or experience to carry out this kind of investigation but goes ahead anyway. Anna investigates with self-mocking humour and a need to know the truth. That she started her investigation by telling her boss: ‘The lion didn’t do it.” made me smile.

I hadn’t expected much of the plot but, by the second half of the book, I was quite engaged with it, even though I had no idea who the killer was. The ending was inspired, unexpected, tense and easy to believe in.

 I’m hungry for more now, so it’s comforting to know that there are eighteen more books in the series. I’m going to allow myself one a month until either I’m done or I lose interest. I’ve already added the next book, ‘A Superior Death‘ set in Isle Royale National Park on the coast of Lake Superior, to my shelves.

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