5 comments about Liberty Falling.

1. The book is set in the Statue of Liberty National Monument (which includes Ellis Island). These sites are prominent in the American imagination but Anna Pigeon spends much of her time rummaging around the unfamiliar "backside" of these parks. The result is fascinating: I had no idea what was lurking off-stage at both sites.
   
   The story combines a mystery set at the park with a continuation of Anna's personal sagas involving her sister and a more-or-less boyfriend. Because of the weight given this part of the story, you should read other Anna Pigeon books before tackling this one. In fact, this book really needs to be read in proper sequence because some of these personal issues reach resolution in a way that appears in later books - - which would then "give away" the story in this one.
   
   The book has that odd feeling of those books and movies set in New York before 9/11. Anna regularly looks back to the Manhattan skyline and refers to the World Trade Center, for example. The sense of anachronism is enhanced by the fact that there are some white supremacist characters and Barr refers several times to the Oklahoma City bombings - - events that we all seem to have forgotten in the post-9/11 world. As it turns out, some of those things play an important part in the mystery. If these issues strike too close to home for you, don't read this book.
   
   Overall, this is a welcome addition to the Anna Pigeon series, about in the middle in terms of overall quality. The mystery is perhaps on the low side of average, the issues surrounding the recurring characters on the high side of average, and the sense of place surprisingly good.



2. I was pretty disgusted with the main character's petty behavior, judging people based on their attractiveness--and, of course, Barr used fat as a shorthand for "bad person"; there was way too many snide remarks about a character's weight, a characteristic that had zero bearing on the character's being good or bad.
   
   Aside from that, the story was completely unbelievable, with a vacationing park ranger poking around in law enforcement matters outside of her jurisdiction, withholding evidence, and mucking about in crime scenes. As if that would hold up in court, or be tolerated by local officials! She also seemed to be messing around in an area that should be closed to the public from its description. The hurry-up-and-tie-everything-together at the end was contrived, the clues ridiculously lame, and the "let's toss in a random type of bad guy" at the end was just bizarre.
   
   This was recommended to me by someone, and I'm going to go ask them for the three hours of my life back.



3. I had read all the earlier and some of the subsequent Anna Pigeon books, and this was the book I was waiting for -- not so much for the mystery as for the subplot.
   
   FINally Anna and Molly have scenes together in person (although Molly is comatose in the first one). FINally, a complicated, face-to-face denouement in the awkward triangle involving Anna and Molly and Frederick the Fed. (F the F is my favorite Nevada Barr character. I wish she had let him remain mysterious, wandering unexpectedly through every third book, sort of like Brenda Starr's Mystery Man. But this new side of FF was fun, too.) And I'm glad Barr gave Anna and Molly something really challenging to their sisterhood to work through.
   
   As for the mystery itself -- OK enough. It was different for me. In the previous books, I was way ahead of Anna in figuring things out and had to watch her walk naively into the clutches of the very person who wanted her dead. In this book, Anna had it figured out and I was (mostly) clueless -- a nice change of formula.
   
   I liked Anna's return to New York in real(?) time, rather than through memories. I work in an urban area where the National Park Service has a presence (Philadelphia), so it didn't seem odd to me. And I really connected to how out of place Anna feels there now.



4. A family emergency brings Anna Pigeon rushing to New York. Molly, her sister, is gravely ill and in the hospital. Anna unrolls her "sleeping bag" with friends on Liberty Island and discovers accidents are murder. Determined to find answers Anna plunges into the melee ignoring warnings to stay clear.
   LIBERTY FALLING is not Nevada Barr's best effort. The intrepid Anna is vulnerable as she haunts the halls of the hospital and fierce in her hunt for those that would destroy an American icon. Maybe it is the contrast of personalities that confuse the reader. But then Nevada Barr, always brings "arm chair travelers a bird's eye-view" of our unique national heritage.
   Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.



5. This is the kind of book that you can skip-read every other page and not miss a thing.

1 comments about Blind Descent.

1. OK, let's fact it. You know the minute you pick up one of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon park ranger mysteries that at some point in the narrative, our intrepid heroine is going to get herself into a life-threatening situation and you are going to be sitting on the edge of your seat unable to put stop listening to the CD.
   
   However, in Blind Descent, Nevada Barr outdoes herself, because the suspense is as thick as the impenetrable darkness Anna Pigeon descends into when she joins a rescue team to bring out an injured park employee from a miles-long mostly unmapped cave in New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns. The injured caver whispered Anna's name during a brief moment of consciousness, and so, battling claustrophobia Anna squeezes through tunnels and rappels down rock faces to the side of the injured woman, who confides to Anna, during another moment of lucidity, that she was pushed. Her injury was not an accident. Which one of the handful of people deep in the bowels of this inhospitable underworld did it? And why? Will they kill the injured caver before she can be brought to the surface? And, anyway, what was that sound? A cave creature?
   
   One of the many charms of the Anna Pigeon mystery series is that the novels are all set in a different National Park, giving the reader an education in, for example, the behind-the-scenes workings of well-known locations such as Yosemite National Park as described in High Country, the civil war background of the less-known ramparts ruins on the island Dry Tortugas National Park at the tip of the Florida Keys, and the intriguing feeding habits of Glacier National Park grizzly bears in Blood Lure.
   
   Therefore, I expected that the almost totally underground setting of Blind Descent would be without charm until I began to read the book. That's when I discovered that, au contraire, underground caving, the creation of immense underground caverns, and their discovery is a fascinating subject.
   
   And then there's our beloved Anna Pigeon, dashing and swash-buckling, at a time in her life when most people are contemplating early retirement, she continues to pull off deeds of daring-do in spite of aching joints and fatigue. I can't help myself. I love Anna Pigeon. When I grow up I want to be just like her, except that, uh oh, I am already grown up. OK, so I love to pretend I am her, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, flying faster than a jet plane . . . no, wait a minute, that's another super hero. In any case, Anna is as close to a real down-to-earth super heroine as you can get and I love her.
   
   I also love narrator Barbara Rosenblat's wonderful performances throughout the Anna Pigeon series. How can she possibly sound like so many different people including men, women, and children of all ages? Her range, tone, cadence, and rhythm change so effortlessly. I've also enjoyed listening to Barbara Rosenblatt in the caterer/sleuth Goldy Schulz mystery series by Diane Mott Davidson, and the Egyptologist mystery series, by Elizabeth Peters (in which I'm absolutely in love with Ramses), and which Rosenblat narrates entirely in a British accent. Amazing!

No comments about Firestorm: An Anna Pigeon Mystery.

5 comments about Flashback (Anna Pigeon).

1. The technique of telling two stories in alternate chapters did not work.Neither story ever got off the ground and the endings were dull!We are Nevada Barr fans,but finishing this book was a chore rather than a pleasure.Sorry!



2. Flashback (Nevada Barr): Our favorite national park ranger, Anna Pigeon, is temporarily filling in for the boss at Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys, after the park's head ranger lost his girlfriend, along with his grip on sanity. It is very hot, and not horribly exciting in the park until Anna receives a box of old letters from her sister, who had unearthed them because they were written by their great, great aunt Raffia when her husband was an army captain at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. Anna spends her days dealing with sunburned tourists, and her nights getting caught up in the history of the last days of the Civil War.
   
   Two stories then unfold; one in the present involving Anna and the staff at the park, and Raffia's story from the time when Fort Jefferson was an active military station and jail for the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination plot. The time periods start to merge in Anna's mind, however, when she sees and hears people from the past late at night while she wanders through the fort. Anna thinks she may be losing her grip on sanity, which makes her suspicious, since the last person to hold her job was institutionalized for the same thing. When one of her rangers is injured when an explosion sinks his boat, Anna starts to tie all the strange clues together to uncover a nefarious plot. Meanwhile, she's reading about a nefarious plot of old in her Aunt Raffia's letters, involving a sadistic sergeant, a rebel soldier, and Raffia's 16-year-old sister Tilly.
   
   Anna is a solitary person and spends much of her time in introspection. Because of her circumstances at the fort, Raffia is also fairly solitary, but it was obvious that the two main characters in this novel were living very different lives. Raffia's welfare is largely dependent on the men around her, whereas Anna completely takes care of herself, even refusing her boyfriend's offer to fly down to keep her company when things are at their worst. Both stories, though different in nature, had similarities, and it was fun to read about two bits of intrigue happening in the same place at different times, and for different reasons. Nevada Barr is always worth reading, and this book is no exception.



3. I enjoyed the book. My husband likes to listen to audio books on our way cross-country.



4. I've read all of the Nevada Barr mysteries and this by far is the worst. Jumping back and forth between the two stories was tiring and boring. I only made it halfway through, and I had to struggle to get that far. The rest of the books in the series are good, but I don't recommend this one for a first time reader of the series.



5. Paul Davidson, former priest and sheriff in Natchez has proposed marriage and Anna Pigeon isn't sure this is what she wants. To put a little space between her and a long-term relationship she accepts a temporary assignment at Dry Tortugas National Park. An island, anything but conducive to contemplation as she finds herself involved in three different mysteries.
   To keep the plot elements separate and moving Nevada Barr executes a splendid juggling act. Molly, Anna's sister send her a packet of letters written by a great-great-aunt who had lived at the fort during it's days as a prison. Rich in historical detail, a clever blend of the past and present, plus Anna's dilemma will insure fans follow the trail to a surprising conclusion. Maybe it is the complexity or diverse elements, but somewhere something is lacking, FLASHBACK isn't up to par for a Barr.
   Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

No comments about The Track of the Cat.

5 comments about Ill Wind.

1. I always enjoy Barr's novels because they just strike me as so real. She's done an excellent job of creating a likable character in Anna Pigeon. Anna's wisecracks and her flaws and her admirable traits all combine to make her a character with which the reader is comfortable, a person for whom the reader can cheer.
   
   Another plus of these novels are the vivid settings for each and the way in which Barr lovingly describes them. The author's previous experiences as a park ranger give her work an authenticity that is especially striking. There is a great deal of passion in the description of places and it only heightens the way in which places speak so much to Anna while people remain somewhat beyond her reach.
   
   This was a very nicely written mystery with many seemingly disparate threads that the author was able to tie up very neatly at the end. It was suspenseful and intriguing and I always find her books to be quick reads because they are so compelling that I devour them, eager to find out what will happen next.



2. Anna's move to Mesa Verde National Park from Isle Royale sets her on track to solve another mystery. Reading this book was a delight because it was more than 50 years ago when I visited Mesa Verde and found it to be one of the most fascinating places five of us Boy Scouts experienced on a 5,000-mile journey through the West. It was good to find that the place retains its special charm. Nevada Barr's ability to provide fine details about the characters and an intriguing plot make this book one you shouldn't miss.



3. Ms. Barr does a good job of bringing back characters from earlier books in the series as participants in her novels. It is interesting to follow Anna Pigeon's relationships as they transcend each book in the series and follow how you feel about each character from one novel to the next. Also, there is always a healthy crop of new characters that you learn about as well. In this one, you not only travel with Anna as she works to solve a mystery, but also how she reconnects with Stanton Frederick, who comes back from an earlier novel to help her solve the case. In all, a great read with lots of mystery and great characters to follow through the maze of facts and lies that ultimately leads to finding out who the bad actors are.



4. Winds always blow across the barren landscape of Mesa Verde National Park, but Anna Pigeon finds them deadly with the murder and the death of a child. One of the great mysteries of the southwest are the Anasazi who left behind beautiful pottery and tiny fragments of their once flourishing civilization.
   Nevada Barr captures the marvelous wind cut features of the park in her third Anna Pigeon (park ranger) mystery/suspense novel. A tough subject to handle as it has been done so frequently, Ms. Barr's fine writing and style lifts this one above the rest.
   A captivating visit with an old friend.
   Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.



5. Ill Wind is my third Anna Pigeon novel. Author Nevada Barr (I still wonder if this is her real name) has Ranger Pigeon living with the noisy seasonals, drinking hard, making friends, and... solving a murder.
   
   Pigeon continues her string of "close misses" in her life and in her caseload.
   
   A well-liked temporary ranger is found dead in an Anasazi structure. Is it a natural death, or murder staged to look natural? Pigeon, along with FBI colleague Fred Stanton, analyze every clue to unravel this mystery. Are the Anasazi ruins haunted? Are environmentalists resorting to murder to keep development from occurring?
   
   Anna Pigeon finds out.
   
   No murder in the first chapter here. This book unfolds slowly, with 100 pages under your belt before the foul deed is uncovered. Anna's drinking problem is in full view. She is a very imperfect person.
   
   I have to admit that I thought I had uncovered the mystery fairly early. "Oh, brother," I thought. "That is so obvious."
   
   It wasn't. Theory number two fell by the wayside as well.
   
   Nevada Barr's mysteries are as good as those written by Dick Francis. And if you have an interest in the layout and management of our national parks, these mysteries are brain candy. Enjoy.

No comments about Ill Wind [Audiobook] [Unabridged] by Barr, Nevada.

No comments about A Superior Death (An Anna Pigeon Mystery).

No comments about Endangered Species (The Anna Pigeon series, Book 5).

No comments about Blood Lure [Audiobook] [Unabridged] by Barr, Nevada.