A Recommendation from Nevada Barr

I had the pleasure of meeting New York Times bestselling author Nevada Barr at the BookMania festival last month in Stuart, Florida. It was a long time coming. Readers have been comparing our outdoors mysteries for the past couple of years (which is flattering to me, since she was one of the real trailblazers in our little sub-genre). Fittingly, we really hit it off, and she agreed to write a blurb for Bad Little Falls, after I sent her an advance copy to read. 

But Nevada was actually much more generous than that. In this week's edition of The Week she gives my career another much-appreciated push:

Nevada Barr's 6 favorite books

The best-selling author and former park ranger recommends adventure stories by Victor Hugo, L.A. Meyer, and Neil Gaiman

The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron (Minotaur, $14). Paul Doiron's sleuth, Mike Bowditch, is a 24-year-old Maine Fisheries and Wildlife man, and most definitely not hard-boiled. Using Bowditch's youth and vulnerability, Doiron gives us a fresh sense of the harsh realities of crime and law enforcement that years of tough guys have allowed us to forget.

Nevada current best seller, The Rope, is her seventeeth novel featuring National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon. I think it's one of her best yet. You should run out and buy a copy. I'd say that even if she hadn't been so nice to me.