I love the outdoors. Whether kayaking, hiking, gardening, or just walking down our wooded road, being immersed in nature provides a sense of peace and renewed creative energy. In fact, when I’m stuck on a scene or trying to noodle through a new book idea, I usually go for a walk. Somehow, Mother Nature replenishes reserves and provides fresh perspective.
I’m not alone. Studies have shown that time spent outdoors can be good for physical and mental wellbeing. So how about time spent in the fictional outdoors? Well, I don’t know of any studies offering proof, but when I read a book that focuses on nature or the environment, I’m typically hooked. Books about the environment, or even those that feature nature as a compelling backdrop, can make a novel come alive.
When I set out to write the Hummingbird Hollow B&B Mystery Series, I wanted readers to experience the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont. I wanted them to see the verdant, lush summer forests, feel the afternoon sun on their shoulders, smell the sweet lilacs and heliotropes, hear the buzz of the bumblebees in the inn’s pollinator gardens, and taste a vine-ripened summer tomato. Experiencing can lead to caring, and for readers to care about the inn and the local environment, including the plight of pollinators, they needed, I reasoned, to be there alongside Hannah.
Of course, not all fictional trips outdoors are serene. Nature can be a helpful accomplice or a wicked adversary. In Murder on Devil’s Pond, I use nature against the characters in a pivotal scene during which they must survive a thunderstorm at night. Suddenly, the beautiful woods and ponds are full of hidden dangers, creating a deep sense of atmospheric tension and upping the stakes. Other novels pit their characters against nature, while some use the backdrop of a unique environment to further the plot or challenge and develop the characters.
If you enjoy spending time in fictional nature, here are six of my favorite crime novels (or series) with a focus on the outdoors.
Anna Pigeon Mysteries by Nevada Barr
Okay, I couldn’t pick just one so I’m adding the entire series to the list. The Anna Pigeon Mysteries by Nevada Barr are a must-read for outdoor enthusiasts. Almost every novel takes the reader to a different national park, and the descriptions of nature and the challenges of conservationism are beautifully done. In the first novel in the series, Track of the Cat, which takes place in the high-country of the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas, we’re introduced to park ranger Anna Pigeon, who has escaped New York looking for peace and finds herself instead investigating the murder of a fellow ranger.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips is a character-driven thriller that takes place on the Kamchatka Peninsula in northeastern Russia. The book explores the lives of several women and girls, including a detective, a mother, a witness, and a neighbor, linked by an unthinkable crime in this small community after two young girls go missing. I was immediately drawn in by the hauntingly desolate, yet beautiful, landscape, which is inextricably intertwined with the well-drawn characters and their story.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
I’d be remiss if I made a list of my favorite nature-themed mysteries and didn’t include Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. The novel follows Kya Clark, the “Marsh Girl,” a young girl who has survived for years alone in her family’s isolated, small home in the North Carolina marsh after her abusive father and other family members leave. When two men from town, including the town’s golden boy, discover beautiful Kya, things progress and one of the men is eventually killed. Did the Marsh Girl murder him? Townspeople think so, pointing to her wild ways, but she denies it. Part mystery, part romance, part ode to nature, Owens paints a compelling portrait that left me aching for the main character, Kya Clark, and the untouched marsh of yesteryear she called home.
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George
I’m a big fan of Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley mysteries. The first one, A Great Deliverance, introduced the characters and the setting (and if you’re new to this series, you may want to start there), but it was In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner that really painted a portrait of the wild, and sometimes deadly, English moors. In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner has Detective Inspector Lynley and his disgraced colleague Barbara Havers investigating the deaths of two people whose bodies are discovered in the moors near an ancient circle of stones called Nine Sisters Henge.
The Lost Man by Jane Harper
If life in the Australian Outback interests you, then The Lost Man by Jane Harper is a great choice. Two brothers living on neighboring cattle ranches in the Outback must confront their own vulnerability and isolation after the mysterious death of their brother. Suspenseful and highly atmospheric, The Lost Man will make you feel as though you are experiencing this vast, remote Australian wilderness yourself.
A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier
If you enjoy adventure (and dogs!) with your nature, don’t miss Paula Munier’s Mercy Carr Mystery Series, the first of which is A Borrowing of Bones. The books take place in Vermont and feature soldier Mercy Carr and her deceased fiancé’s retired bomb-sniffing dog, Elvis, both of whom are suffering from PTSD when they return stateside. In A Borrowing of Bones, Mercy and Elvis discover a crying baby and a shallow grave filled with remains in the Vermont wilderness during one of their long treks. The two pair up with U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear to solve a cold-case murder and find the infant’s mother. The descriptions of Vermont will transport you to the Green Mountain State, and did I mention dogs?
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