Danger at Rangerfest
I’ve enjoyed catching up with Jack Prester this year in the newest entries from Sandy Dengler. Saguaro is the latest entry in the series and it was another great book.
As you might have surmised from the title, Jack is a special investigator for the National Parks Service. He heads out to a park that is having a special problem and works to solve it. Fortunately for us, these problems often involve murder and lots of danger.
This book finds Jack already in the area before the trouble begins. He’s in Tucson for Rangerfest, an annual gathering of those who work in the parks. When two grad students’ bodies are found in one part of Saguaro, his boss asks him to look into it. Jack quickly finds that there are multiple local agencies trying to get in on the investigation, which makes things more complicated. But the greatest complication is the attack on Jack. If he survives, can he figure out what is going on?
As usual, the book starts out with a scene from a point of view that isn’t one of the main characters but someone closer to the crime. In this case, I thought we might be getting a little too much information, but that turned out not to be the case. We still had plenty of twists before we got to the logical climax. There were some strong subplots that helped the pages fly by as well.
And we also had plenty of danger and excitement. While I knew how some of those things would turn out bit picture, I loved seeing exactly how the details came together.
Over the last several books, Jacks world has really expanded. He’s no longer our only point of view character. In this book, we get some scenes from his wife and his father, who also winds up doing some big parts of the investigation. I truly enjoy seeing things from their point of view and watching how everything comes together at the end.
The characters overall are wonderful. We do see some growth here, but our main cast is just fantastic as they are and the suspects fit well into the world.
Part of what makes these books fun is the way the main cast plays off each other. There are some laughs, but you can tell how much they all love and respect each other.
Do know there are a few fouls words in the book, but they are kept to a minimum. And the violence is a tad above a cozy, but without getting gory.
As always, the writing is wonderful. Sandy Dengler has a way of making her prose feel slightly poetic without getting in the way of the story. I always marvel at how she expresses things.
The original books in the series were originally published in the 1990’s. These later entries are set in the somewhat nebulous time between then and now. As long as you can accept this, you’ll be fine.
Now that I'm caught up, I’m left hoping that we will get more adventure with Jack soon. There are a lot of parks we haven’t visited yet, after all. Those looking for a fun and thrilling trip to Arizona will be glad they picked up Saguaro.
Be sure to visit more parks with the rest of the Jack Prester Mysteries.
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