REVIEW: Leave No Trace

 Leave No Trace
Author: A.J. Landau

A.J. Landau is the pen name used by the writing team of Jon Land and Jeff Ayers. I've enjoyed other thriller (and mystery) series set in US National Parks so grabbing this book at the library was an easy decision!

Leave No Trace starts out with the destruction of the Statue of Liberty and the danger spreads to attacks at other National Parks across the United States. Special Agent Michael Walker with the National Parks Service and FBI Agent Gina Delgado team up to investigate and stop a domestic terrorist group. The terrorists are planning a chemical attack that could kill millions. 

The action started early in this first book of the National Parks Thriller series. Boom....Statue of Liberty topples over. Can you even imagine? 

But....in several places the action and drive of the story lost focus and fizzled for me, or just got bogged down in melodrama. This is why I have sort of mixed feelings about reading books by Jon Land.  I constantly felt like scenes were added to make this story viable as a movie script.  Blow up the Statue of Liberty. Throw the NPS agent into a flooded river where he loses his prosthetic limb. Put a Native American activist on top a semi truck where he holds on for dear life for hours to trace the bad guys to their base (is that even possible??). And, tie the cause of the whole attack plot back to a serious prior incident in the life of a main character. 

It's a bit like a script from a TV movie. I rolled my eyes more than once. 

But....I didn't hate it. And I would watch the movie. 

Not a great thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat.....but definitely readable. 

I liked how each chapter started out with a fact about a US National Park. 

The main characters are interesting and engaging. I'm hoping there is more character development for them in the second book....and less weird military patriotism. 

I listened to the audio book version of this story [Recorded Books, Inc, 2024, 10 hrs 43 minutes, narrated by Gregory Abbey]. Gregory Abbey read at a nice, even pace and was easy to understand. He keeps an even tone so I was quickly able to lose myself in the story. 

All in all, a nice start to a new series. I'm hoping the characters and concept find stronger footing in book 2.  The blurb for the second book -- a group of scientists disappearing in Glacier National Park -- is what started me reading this series. I had to read book one before I could jump into book two.