A mystery set in Yellowstone National Park where a skirmish between a local hunter and a wolf biologist turns violent, and a park ranger, facing his own personal demons, sets out to determine what really happened.
Heller has shifted from the meditative, almost poetic tone of his first couple books to out-and-out thrillers that are set in beautiful places where people do stupid things to mess them up ... Last Ranger doesn't have the narrative momentum of The River or his last one, The Guide ... Has the feel of a series launch but if it is, Heller will need to interrogate the motives of Ren, whose split-second decisionmaking turns him into a vigilante in a way that the book doesn't acknowledge.
Heller’s style...is Hemingway with the machismo scoured out of it ... Can get convoluted ... The propulsiveness of the story sometimes overheats the prose ... And Heller is so determined to avoid easy heroes-and-villains storytelling that the novel closes with some facile both-sidesism, as if prey were better off understanding the nature of their predators.
