Boar Island by Nevada Barr

This novel is one of a series of novels featuring Anna Pigeon, a National Park Ranger and various escapades she encounters in her job. In the past her stories have been exciting and plausible. I do realize that every author cannot produce a top-seller with each new book. However, sometimes it seems as if the author has lost her or his way.

As an avid reader, I have read my fair share of books over the years. Particularly in preparation for writing this blog. It has afforded me the opportunity to avail myself of a variety of authors, genres and storylines. If you read my blog regularly you might note that I seldom have a negative critique. My reasoning for this is that no one reads a book exactly the same way. We all come to the story with our own life experiences and either embrace or reject what is on the written page.

In addition there seems to be a trend of late where personal attitudes toward a variety of subjects is interspersed thoughout the storyline. If and I mean IF they had any correlation to the story at all people would read through the story without noticing it. However, they more often than not have nothing to do with the story. This book has several paragraphs which fall into this category. I find this disconcerting and disruptive to the story itself.

With all that in mind, this story opens up with an interesting premise that is all too familiar to many of us and that is bullying in cyberspace. It is certainly a current topic and that alone should draw a reader into the story. I believe it does. I think if the author had focused on this theme alone and visited solutions in regard to eliminating this problem, it would have been a far more interesting story. There were far too many sub-plots in this book which diluted the main focus of the story.

The focus of the bullying is a teenage girl. She has been receiving threats on facebook and in her e-mails. In addition she feels she is being harrassed by unknown people whereever she goes. Some are overtly obvious while others are more hidden in her purview. Elizabeth finally reaches a point where she realizes she must tell someone what she is experiencing and Anna Pigeon is that person. What follows is a thorough investigation in to who or whom is threatening her. No stone is left unturned until the truth is revealed and dealt with. The setting of this story is Mt. Desert Island in Maine. The setting lends itself to the premise of the story because although it is a popular tourist destination during the summer months, the winters are more desolate and offer a safe cocoon away from the madding crowd.

While this story certainly had some good features, it was not one of my favorite books. I will read more of Ms. Barr's books in the future because when one examines the entire series as a whole, the reader can easily see that this author has a good sense of mystery.

Ladybookbug!