The Last Ranger
Ratings14
Average rating3.8
Kind of a book that makes you want to quit your job and go visit Yellowstone. This is my second Peter Heller book, and I enjoyed this one more than the other one I read a few months ago (Burn). It's not without flaws, but I loved how the author can paint a scene.
The story follows the point of view of a Yellowstone park ranger, Ren, who makes a living monitoring the park, saving tourists from themselves, and keeping an eye out for illegal hunting. We meet a small cast of characters who either work in Yellowstone themselves, or in the nearby town, one of these being Hilly, a wolf biologist. She lives and breathes wolves, has a temper, and manages to get on the wrong side of the wrong person in town. A trap is laid out, but not for a wolf, and Ren gets pulled into finding the culprit.
Up front I'll say that this is a really slow burn mystery that really isn't all that mysterious. I'd say the flow of the story is pretty well broadcast throughout, so I wasn't particularly startled at how things played out in the end. But what really did it for me with this book was the way the author depicted life in Yellowstone. Amidst Ren's investigation we get small little vignettes of him doing park ranger things, and even though this is a fiction book, every bit of it rings true to how I imagine things playing out. We also get flashbacks into Ren's past with a late wife he lost to illness, and by the end of the book I was rooting for him to find some measure of peace of mind. I wasn't quite as on board with Hilly's use of wolf euphemisms near the end of the book, but I guess when wolves are what you know, that's how you look at life.
Just a nice book about a park I really want to visit one day.
Thanks to the publisher and Libro.fm for the ALC!
I came for the wolves and stayed for the characters. In another timeline I was definitely a wolf biologist in a National Park, so the premise had me. It was a short and well-plotted book that gave itself some effective time with the characters and the setting without being overwritten. I really loved all the little touches of pack life in Yellowstone. Overall, I enjoyed my listening experience and would recommend it.