Nevada Barr’s, Burn deals with a difficult subject, and one that generally makes people mad or at least uncomfortable – child molestation, kidnapping, and child prostitution. She digs into the pedophile trade. Who needs vampires, when you have pedophiles?

The story starts in Seattle and shifts to New Orleans. Anna Pigeon, Barr’s main protagonist and a National Park Ranger needs some well-deserved rest and relaxation. She rents a place from her friend, Geneva, a blind blues singer, who also works for the park service with the heritage musical program in the French Quarter.

Barr knows New Orleans, and she passes that knowledge along to the reader as they follow Anna through the shadier streets hunting for a pair of missing children.  The children have possibly become sex slaves.

This book is down and dirtier than Barr’s previous books. It’s a raw story, and she makes the reader feel uncomfortable. She forces the reader to experience the horror of children being forced into heinous acts and positions by the City’s powerful and elite.

This was a difficult book to read because of the content and the style. Barr used three voices in the beginning and the book did not flow. Once Anna and Jordan met the book flowed better, and the story progressed quickly. Burn’s content challenges the reader to take action on the issue of pedophilia, to scream out at the atrocities perpetrated against children in our society.

According to the Counter Pedophilia Investigative Unit, 67 percent of all victims of sexual assault reported to law enforcement agencies were under the age of 18, and 34 percent were under the age of 12. One in seven victims of sexual assault were under the age of 6 (www.cpiu.us). The CPIU site seems to have the most reliable statistics, I could not find reliable statistics regarding underage sex slaves.

Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon

Nevada Barr’s primary protagonist, Anna Pigeon makes a great character. She is a gun-toting National Park Ranger. Pigeon may be short in stature, but big on guts and independence. Her travels have taken her all over the United States. She has been out west, north to Isle Royale, and south to the Natchez Trail. She has explored caverns, fought alligators and braved the Lake Superior winters.

Burn is Barr’s current book, and places Anna Pigeon in harm’s way in New Orleans. The town is slowly recovering from Katrina, but Pigeon finds herself the recipient of a possible curse. Read the book to find out. Anna is in New Orleans to recover from harrowing escapades in Texas and Isle Royale. She is looking for a little relaxation in the Big Easy, but instead she finds a stinky situation underneath the town’s recently applied veneer. Burn will be coming out in paperback May 24^th.

Barr currently lives in New Orleans with her husband and assorted cats and dogs. Her resume includes a stint in the National Park Service serving at the places she now writes about. She also has some formal training as an actress, and worked in the business for eight years. Nevada Barr was born and raised in, drum roll, Nevada. Hmmm, imagine. In addition to her writing, Barr also paints. Her artwork is online at Paper Tiger Productions, Art by Paxton, the alter ego of Nevada Barr.

Aspiring Author Tip: An article by Susan Larson in the Times-Picayune, March 26, 2009, quotes Barr, “Every story has already been told. The only thing you can bring to it is whatever is idiosyncratically yours.”