Destroyer Angel

For fans of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series, no further introduction is needed. Anna Pigeon is a ranger for the National Parks Service and these books are generally set in the national parks, although Anna is not always working when they take place. I must have listened to Hard Truth, an earlier book in the series, rather than reading it because I don't have it in my book blog and the characters in this one, Destroyer Angel, I knew from the earlier book...also very much worth a read. In Hard Truth, Anna gets involved with Heath, a former technical climber who is now paraplegic as a result of a bad fall. Heath and her aunt are camping when two half-starved and obviously terrified young girls stumble into their campsite. They have been kidnapped and tortured, but finally escaped. One of these girls is Elizabeth and in the current book, Heath has adopted Elizabeth, who is now 15 years old. Anna is on vacation with Heath, Elizabeth and a woman who designs outdoor equipment for the disabled, Leah, plus Leah's 13-year old daughter, Katie. They are testing out some new designs of Leah's and Anna is just along for the ride on this trip into the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. On their second night, Anna is taking a solo paddle on the Fox River and returns to find that four armed thugs have invaded the camp and taken the two women and the girls prisoner. There is no cell phone reception and Anna is unarmed. She has to rely on stealth, determination, and a certain amount of regression to the wild and savage if she is going to rescue her friends before they disappear or are killed. This is a very tense and grueling story with dark events and some truly evil characters--not uncommon in these books. But the good gals win in the end, although not without taking psychological and physical abuse that will leave them all scarred for a long time.