The Last Ranger – Peter Heller
Expectation: A “John Wick” revenge fantasy about a national park ranger seeking out an illegal wolf poaching ring.
Reality: The plot drowns in unrelated minutiae. Had I not been trapped in a car for six hours, I probably would’ve given up on it.
My Take:
In my household, deciding what audiobook to listen to on a road trip is akin to choosing a vacation destination — there are strong opinions and it usually leads to acrimony. So, over the years we’ve adjusted to a “you choose, then I choose” rhythm with both parties taking the other’s literary preferences into account.
Even with careful consideration and planning — you need to time those Libby app deliveries perfectly, after all — our batting average for road trip listens is below .200. In other words, terrible.
All this to say, I had high hopes for Peter Heller’s “The Last Ranger,” which on paper checked all the boxes for mass appeal: nature, animals, mystery, literary and crime. Unfortunately, the description of the novel — a Yellowstone National Park Ranger investigates a violent animal poaching ring — was far more interesting than the text itself.
Shame on me for putting my pick in the hands of an untested author (for both me and my husband) as we both found “Ranger” impressively dull given the subject matter. Heller, a gifted writer, even stated the main problem with this story about halfway through it — main character Ren frequently gets lost in his memories.
It’s a shame, too, because the story started so promisingly with Ren, a moral but not saintly, law enforcement ranger walking the reader through his day-to-day, which entails refereeing unruly park visitors and monitoring wild animal and human interactions.
Heller weaves in current events — how an influx of visitors are disrupting natural ecosystems at national parks and eminent domain challenges — with a handful of characters all existing on the fringes of society. Each is more comfortable in nature than around fellow humans.
The text was most interesting when these characters were able to describe the natural beauty of Yellowstone and the adrenaline rush from watching wild animals — in this case mostly a wolf pack — thrive among a changing climate and two-legged threats.
Everything else was, frankly, a drag.
There was far too much reflection and too little action for a novel categorized as a mystery thriller. There’s a militia that is the very definition of clichéd plot device, the big climax has all the excitement of a jar of mayonnaise and the love scenes are trite and borderline embarrassing.
While Heller is a writer of some note, this read like a self-published adult extension writing class assignment that needed a few more rounds of editing before seeing the light of day. I’ve read worse books, sure, but few novels with such a rich tapestry to work from should leave the reader so bored.
Bless narrator Mark Deakins for trying his damndest to keep “Ranger” interesting. While his portrayal of the female characters wasn’t exactly top-notch, he did nail Ren’s tough guy with baggage demeanor. I believed in what he was selling even when I was rolling my eyes at how Heller presented it.
Rating (story): 2/5 stars
Rating (narration): 3/5 stars
Format: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: September 15 – September 17, 2023
Multi-tasking: Good to go. After you adjust to the stream of consciousness writing style mixed with light plot, you’ll be able to navigate this story easily.
