HIGH COUNTRY - Nevada Barr

          This is either the 11th or 12th in Barr's series of Anna Pigeon novels, so if you've been reading along you know the basic proposition.  if you don't, i'll clue you in a little.  Anna is a National Park Service Ranger, working in law enforcement.  she's been in a different park in every book, pursuing malfeasance with a vengeance, falling into seriously Bad Situations with folks working on the Wrong Side of the Law.  Anna has matured and mellowed in the course of her adventures; she's now engaged to a preacher/sheriff (yes, he's both) back in Mississippi, where her home park, the Natchez Trace, is located.  she's been sent to Yosemite this time, working undercover, as a waitress in the upscale Ahwahnee Lodge restaurant.  four young people from the park have disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and Anna's job is to pick up clues from other employees, figure out whether they left under their own steam or were victims of a crime.  
           Of course it was the latter, there wouldn't be a story otherwise!  a story involving a  syringe full of AIDS-tainted blood, a drugplane crashed in the mountains, some truly nasty badass villains, a nighttime chase through the snowy Sierras under the worst possible conditions.  Anna may have mellowed, but she's still no one to mess with. even graying, middle-aged, no longer drinking, she can still kick some butt.  and in this book, she does.   Nevada Barr was herself an NPS Ranger, and she writes of outdoor adventure, nature in all its glories and dangers, the awesome beauty of our national treasures, the Parks, as no one else can.
           it's because of Nevada Barr, and Anna Pigeon, that one of my fantasies for retirement is working as a volunteer in one of the National Parks.   Barr tells a good story, and this is one of the very best in the series, but she is also proselytizing about the embattled Park Service, the lack of funding and care being allotted to our Parks.  don't get me wrong - she never preaches.  but the message comes through, we hear it, and we care.