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Anna Pigeon #17
The Rope
Anna Pigeon's first case—this is the story her fans have been clamoring for...this is where it all starts. In The Rope, the latest in Nevada Barr’s bestselling novels featuring Anna Pigeon, Nevada Barr gathers together the many strings of Anna’s past and finally reveals the story that her many fans have been long asking for. In 1995 and 35 years old, fresh off the bus from New York City and nursing a broken heart, Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. On her day off, Anna goes hiking into the park never to return. Her co-workers think she’s simply moved on—her cabin is cleaned out and her things gone. But Anna herself wakes up, trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without supplies and no clear memory of how she found herself in this situation.
As she slowly pieces together her memory, it soon becomes clear that someone has trapped her there, in an inescapable prison, and no one knows that she is even missing. Plunged into a landscape and a plot she is unfit and untrained to handle, Anna Pigeon must muster the courage, determination and will to live that she didn’t even know she still possessed to survive, outwit and triumph.
For those legions of readers who have been entranced over the years by Park Ranger Anna Pigeon’s strength and determination and those who are new to Nevada Barr’s captivating, compelling novels, this is where it all starts.
As she slowly pieces together her memory, it soon becomes clear that someone has trapped her there, in an inescapable prison, and no one knows that she is even missing. Plunged into a landscape and a plot she is unfit and untrained to handle, Anna Pigeon must muster the courage, determination and will to live that she didn’t even know she still possessed to survive, outwit and triumph.
For those legions of readers who have been entranced over the years by Park Ranger Anna Pigeon’s strength and determination and those who are new to Nevada Barr’s captivating, compelling novels, this is where it all starts.
357 pages, Hardcover
First published January 17, 2012
360 people are currently reading
3528 people want to read
About the author
Nevada Barr
66 books2,292 followersNevada Barr is a mystery fiction author, known for her "Anna Pigeon" series of mysteries, set in National Parks in the United States. Barr has won an Agatha Award for best first novel for Track of the Cat.
Barr was named after the state of her birth. She grew up in Johnstonville, California. She finished college at the University of California, Irvine. Originally, Barr started to pursue a career in theatre, but decided to be a park ranger. In 1984 she published her first novel, Bittersweet, a bleak lesbian historical novel set in the days of the Western frontier.
While working in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Barr created the Anna Pigeon series. Pigeon is a law enforcement officer with the United States National Park Service. Each book in the series takes place in a different National Park, where Pigeon solves a murder mystery, often related to natural resource issues. She is a satirical, witty woman whose icy exterior is broken down in each book by a hunky male to whom she is attracted (such as Rogelio).
Currently, Ms. Barr lives in New Orleans, LA.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/nevada...
Barr was named after the state of her birth. She grew up in Johnstonville, California. She finished college at the University of California, Irvine. Originally, Barr started to pursue a career in theatre, but decided to be a park ranger. In 1984 she published her first novel, Bittersweet, a bleak lesbian historical novel set in the days of the Western frontier.
While working in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Barr created the Anna Pigeon series. Pigeon is a law enforcement officer with the United States National Park Service. Each book in the series takes place in a different National Park, where Pigeon solves a murder mystery, often related to natural resource issues. She is a satirical, witty woman whose icy exterior is broken down in each book by a hunky male to whom she is attracted (such as Rogelio).
Currently, Ms. Barr lives in New Orleans, LA.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/nevada...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,026 reviews
February 16, 2018
Back when I lived in Indiana, I read the first 5-6 Anna Pigeon mysteries by Nevada Barr. Even though I wasn't a frequent crime reader, I liked them because each one was set in a different National Park (more or less), and as the novel unfolded, I'd also live vicariously through Anna to explore a park as well. They grew more violent and I got distracted, I don't know, but I didn't continue in the series.
I received this book in my #whodunitbymail postal book swap. It's #17 but is actually Anna's back story, which I found interesting. We learn that she has her first taste of a dangerous event at a national park at 35 (!) following a tragedy in her own life. She moves to Glen Canyon National Recreational Area to fill a summer staff position, where she spends most of her time cleaning up human fecal matter that boaters have dumped around various areas. Ick! Then she wakes up in a place and has no memory of how she got there....
So I don't think I ever knew that Anna had a New York theater background or that this all didn't even start until 35 (still not sure that's right, maybe the book description is wrong!). And the author starts to capture the unique personality traits of people drawn to work in the National Park Service, both the good and bad.
I spent some time searching for images on the internet, particularly when it comes to the "jar" that is described. Glen Canyon and Lake Powell are beautiful areas.
But really the hero of this book for me is Buddy!
I received this book in my #whodunitbymail postal book swap. It's #17 but is actually Anna's back story, which I found interesting. We learn that she has her first taste of a dangerous event at a national park at 35 (!) following a tragedy in her own life. She moves to Glen Canyon National Recreational Area to fill a summer staff position, where she spends most of her time cleaning up human fecal matter that boaters have dumped around various areas. Ick! Then she wakes up in a place and has no memory of how she got there....
So I don't think I ever knew that Anna had a New York theater background or that this all didn't even start until 35 (still not sure that's right, maybe the book description is wrong!). And the author starts to capture the unique personality traits of people drawn to work in the National Park Service, both the good and bad.
I spent some time searching for images on the internet, particularly when it comes to the "jar" that is described. Glen Canyon and Lake Powell are beautiful areas.
But really the hero of this book for me is Buddy!
April 23, 2012
Okay, so awhile back, I swore off Nevada Barr because of her dark edginess yada yada (feel free to look up my previous review). HowEVER...when I heard she had written a prequel, I HAD to read it because Anna Pigeon and I are Ranger Sisters, practically, and I HAD to know how it all started. Besides, I don't remember the first Anna Pigeon books being quite that edgy, so the part of me that has the ability to make excuses and justify going back on my own word unwisely thought that the prequel couldn't possibly be all that edgy.
Well, it is. HowEVER...I really admired Nevada Barr all through this particular book. Like I've never admired her before! Her use of language, her character development, her surprises (when my haughty self thought I had it ALL figured out...SURPRISE!!)...And that closing line! How CLEVER is Nevada Barr???
So, I still have a few issues with Nevada and I'm not going to make any more claims and/or promises, but props to her this time!
P.S. I just LOVE the part she inserted about how amazingly qualified park rangers can't land good positions because there are too many Veterans on the list. I love Veterans and all, but Nevada must be staying pretty tight with some of her ranger friends to keep current on all things NPS!
Well, it is. HowEVER...I really admired Nevada Barr all through this particular book. Like I've never admired her before! Her use of language, her character development, her surprises (when my haughty self thought I had it ALL figured out...SURPRISE!!)...And that closing line! How CLEVER is Nevada Barr???
So, I still have a few issues with Nevada and I'm not going to make any more claims and/or promises, but props to her this time!
P.S. I just LOVE the part she inserted about how amazingly qualified park rangers can't land good positions because there are too many Veterans on the list. I love Veterans and all, but Nevada must be staying pretty tight with some of her ranger friends to keep current on all things NPS!
November 25, 2011
This is a fun mystery taking us back to 1995, when Anna Pigeon took her first job with the National Park Service. It's a prequel, so you need not have read any of the other books in the series before reading this one. If you're a long-time Anna Pigeon fan, you'll enjoy seeing her as a rookie. She's new to the outdoor life and not yet in law enforcement.
Recently widowed and drowning in despair, Anna takes an entry-level job at Lake Powell. As yet she has no wilderness savvy. On her day off she hikes out into the desert with no hat and not enough water or food. When she doesn't return, her co-workers think she has decamped and headed back to New York City. Seasonal employees don't always stick around, so no one thinks much about it. Especially because her belongings have also disappeared from her room.
As it turns out, Anna has been attacked and dropped into a deep hollow or "jar" in the sandstone. She wakes with almost no memory of what happened, and no way to get out of the jar. As she faces an ordeal of hunger and thirst, expecting to die, she uncovers some alarming clues and begins to discover how resourceful she can be in a crisis.
Who has it in for Anna, and why? Who removed her things from Park Service housing? Was it a fellow employee? Did she see something she wasn't supposed to witness?
When she reappears at the Park Service compound and reports her experiences, the investigation makes almost everyone suspect, including Anna herself. Jenny, her tough, no-nonsense housemate, turns out to be her greatest ally. Jenny also develops a mad crush on Anna, but keeps it to herself for obvious reasons.
The girl crush was the one thing in the book that was a little overdone. The workplace diversity theme is important, and the unrequited adoration is amusing, but it received a lot more page time than necessary. (I should add that this could just be my own bias, as I prefer anything resembling romance to be more in the background when I read a mystery.)
The Rope has all the entertaining elements we've come to expect from the series. Anna Pigeon gets herself into one scrape after another and seems to encounter more than her share of diabolical characters. As a former NPS employee, Nevada Barr has insider knowledge about the life. This installment also includes an important ecological message about the serious problem of human waste disposal at Lake Powell. Be sure to follow those proper pooping protocols!
Recently widowed and drowning in despair, Anna takes an entry-level job at Lake Powell. As yet she has no wilderness savvy. On her day off she hikes out into the desert with no hat and not enough water or food. When she doesn't return, her co-workers think she has decamped and headed back to New York City. Seasonal employees don't always stick around, so no one thinks much about it. Especially because her belongings have also disappeared from her room.
As it turns out, Anna has been attacked and dropped into a deep hollow or "jar" in the sandstone. She wakes with almost no memory of what happened, and no way to get out of the jar. As she faces an ordeal of hunger and thirst, expecting to die, she uncovers some alarming clues and begins to discover how resourceful she can be in a crisis.
Who has it in for Anna, and why? Who removed her things from Park Service housing? Was it a fellow employee? Did she see something she wasn't supposed to witness?
When she reappears at the Park Service compound and reports her experiences, the investigation makes almost everyone suspect, including Anna herself. Jenny, her tough, no-nonsense housemate, turns out to be her greatest ally. Jenny also develops a mad crush on Anna, but keeps it to herself for obvious reasons.
The girl crush was the one thing in the book that was a little overdone. The workplace diversity theme is important, and the unrequited adoration is amusing, but it received a lot more page time than necessary. (I should add that this could just be my own bias, as I prefer anything resembling romance to be more in the background when I read a mystery.)
The Rope has all the entertaining elements we've come to expect from the series. Anna Pigeon gets herself into one scrape after another and seems to encounter more than her share of diabolical characters. As a former NPS employee, Nevada Barr has insider knowledge about the life. This installment also includes an important ecological message about the serious problem of human waste disposal at Lake Powell. Be sure to follow those proper pooping protocols!
April 14, 2012
I must say that I'm in love with Anna Pigeon at all phases of her life. I met a tiny little red headed and freckle faced park ranger in the Tetons after she pulled me over for speeding. I called her Miss Pigeon. She was a bit miffed until I told her about the Barr novels. Then she forgave the speeding and went on her way.
The rope should have been titled "Dangling Rope" as that is where Anna's post New York "intellectual" and therefore, pubescent career began. I suppose there may have been a copy right problem on using Dangling Rope. I particularly liked the word pictures drawn by Barr of the Powell area as it is the most wonderful place in the world. Keep Hawaii and Mexico, you can have them. Powell beats them all for privacy and beauty and Barr captures that nicely.
I'm hard to fool about how books are going to end once I'm about half way through, But Barr managed to keep me intrigued right to the end, and I'm still not sure that the guilty are that guilty and the innocent are that innocent. This is a book I'll read over again, just to find the "tells." Great job Ms. Barr. When will the OLD Anna revisit Lake Powell? Yellowstone? Write faster please. Soon, Anna will retire, and I'll be destroyed.
The rope should have been titled "Dangling Rope" as that is where Anna's post New York "intellectual" and therefore, pubescent career began. I suppose there may have been a copy right problem on using Dangling Rope. I particularly liked the word pictures drawn by Barr of the Powell area as it is the most wonderful place in the world. Keep Hawaii and Mexico, you can have them. Powell beats them all for privacy and beauty and Barr captures that nicely.
I'm hard to fool about how books are going to end once I'm about half way through, But Barr managed to keep me intrigued right to the end, and I'm still not sure that the guilty are that guilty and the innocent are that innocent. This is a book I'll read over again, just to find the "tells." Great job Ms. Barr. When will the OLD Anna revisit Lake Powell? Yellowstone? Write faster please. Soon, Anna will retire, and I'll be destroyed.
February 10, 2012
I was really disappointed in this "prequel" to the Anna Pigeon series. Anna's husband Zach has been killed so Anna takes a job as a seasonal park employee at Dangling Rope, a park on Lake Powell. As the book opens Anna is just regaining consciousness and is discovering that she is being held prisoner at the bottom of a "solution hole" - a natural vertical cave. How did she get there? Who is trying to kill her? Why? Since this takes place before all the other books, you know from the get-go that she will be rescued. The remainder of the novel describes the investigation into the incident. The main reason that I didn't like this book very much was that I really didn't like Anna. She's so reserved and private, that there is no reason to get interested in her as a character. I also didn't "get" the motivations of the "bad guys." I'm glad that I've read most of the other books in the series, because I would not be inspired to read on, if this was my only introduction to Anna Pigeon.
March 8, 2012
As Lee Child recently did with his latest in the “Reacher series” titled The Affair: A Jack Reacher Novel author Nevada Barr takes readers back in time in this prequel to her Anna Pigeon series. The year is 1995 as The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel opens and Anna is thirty-five and adrift in a sea of mourning regarding the recent death of her husband Zach. She is a specter in black amongst the living and has barely connected with any of her fellow workers at the Glen Canyon Recreational Area except for Jenny.
So it is not surprising to anyone when Anna and her things disappear from the small cabin she shared with Jenny. The assumption is the former stage manager went back to New York as the desert backcountry was clearly no place for Anna. Not even Jenny is surprised she left though she is terribly disappointed. Not only was Anna a big help in going out and removing human waste fouling the waters and beaches of the area, Anna was the object of Jenny’s unrequited lust.
The problem is Anna never really left. Somebody drugged her, stripped her naked, scarred her body with a knife, and dumped her down a “solution hole.” A solution hole is a vertical hole or shaft cut into the surrounding sandstone that goes nowhere and has no way out thanks to the walls being polished smooth over the eons of time. Anna awakens to find herself naked, badly injured, and with no way out. Whoever did it is apparently not just leaving her to die. Instead, she is at the mercy of someone who is clearly toying with her like a bug under a magnifying lens. Her only hope is to stay alive long enough to somehow escape.
Beyond the obvious fact that Anna must survive or there would not be a published series, there is little that can be said about this glacially slow moving book without creating spoilers. Despite an obvious red herring, the suspect list is small and rather reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. One expects Anna at the end to summon them all to the hole she was trapped in and then name off the culprit. It does not work out quite that way, but does come fairly close.
Obsession and the effects on mental health or lack of same is the dominant theme of the book. Jenny constantly battles her own lesbian obsession as she becomes fixated on Anna as an object of love and lust. That same obsession was previously directed towards another woman with grave consequences as readers gradually learn and seems destined to end badly again. Other characters are also obsessed with Anna for various reasons making this book primarily all about who gets to claim Anna body and soul. Then there is Anna’s own obsession with the tragic death of Zach that seems to come up over and over again in each chapter before finally being replaced at the end of the book by her new obsession.
Continuing the trend in her most recent novels of a turn towards the sadistic and dark that is far from the roots of the series, The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel is yet another very dark read. A dark read in terms of events and tone the book clashes strongly when compared to the original and excellent start of the series titled Track of the Cat. This new novel is a highly atmospheric one with long stretches of mental contemplation by the various characters occasionally broken by some small sections of action. Long stretches of time and pages are spent in the heads of each character where readers are told what to think and feel. Unfortunately, there is not a likeable character in the bunch and by the end of the book you want to slap everyone in sight to knock some sense into them.
If you are going to spend so much time in the course of a book inside a character’s head while he or she dithers about life and his or her sexuality, it would be better spent in a much better book.
The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel
Nevada Barr
http://www.nevadabarr.com
Minotaur Books (St. Martin’s Publishing Group)
http://minotaurbooks.com
January 2012
ISBN# 978-0-312-61457-7
Hardcover (also available as e-book and audio book)
357 Pages
$25.99
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2012
reviews, news and more http://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/
So it is not surprising to anyone when Anna and her things disappear from the small cabin she shared with Jenny. The assumption is the former stage manager went back to New York as the desert backcountry was clearly no place for Anna. Not even Jenny is surprised she left though she is terribly disappointed. Not only was Anna a big help in going out and removing human waste fouling the waters and beaches of the area, Anna was the object of Jenny’s unrequited lust.
The problem is Anna never really left. Somebody drugged her, stripped her naked, scarred her body with a knife, and dumped her down a “solution hole.” A solution hole is a vertical hole or shaft cut into the surrounding sandstone that goes nowhere and has no way out thanks to the walls being polished smooth over the eons of time. Anna awakens to find herself naked, badly injured, and with no way out. Whoever did it is apparently not just leaving her to die. Instead, she is at the mercy of someone who is clearly toying with her like a bug under a magnifying lens. Her only hope is to stay alive long enough to somehow escape.
Beyond the obvious fact that Anna must survive or there would not be a published series, there is little that can be said about this glacially slow moving book without creating spoilers. Despite an obvious red herring, the suspect list is small and rather reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. One expects Anna at the end to summon them all to the hole she was trapped in and then name off the culprit. It does not work out quite that way, but does come fairly close.
Obsession and the effects on mental health or lack of same is the dominant theme of the book. Jenny constantly battles her own lesbian obsession as she becomes fixated on Anna as an object of love and lust. That same obsession was previously directed towards another woman with grave consequences as readers gradually learn and seems destined to end badly again. Other characters are also obsessed with Anna for various reasons making this book primarily all about who gets to claim Anna body and soul. Then there is Anna’s own obsession with the tragic death of Zach that seems to come up over and over again in each chapter before finally being replaced at the end of the book by her new obsession.
Continuing the trend in her most recent novels of a turn towards the sadistic and dark that is far from the roots of the series, The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel is yet another very dark read. A dark read in terms of events and tone the book clashes strongly when compared to the original and excellent start of the series titled Track of the Cat. This new novel is a highly atmospheric one with long stretches of mental contemplation by the various characters occasionally broken by some small sections of action. Long stretches of time and pages are spent in the heads of each character where readers are told what to think and feel. Unfortunately, there is not a likeable character in the bunch and by the end of the book you want to slap everyone in sight to knock some sense into them.
If you are going to spend so much time in the course of a book inside a character’s head while he or she dithers about life and his or her sexuality, it would be better spent in a much better book.
The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel
Nevada Barr
http://www.nevadabarr.com
Minotaur Books (St. Martin’s Publishing Group)
http://minotaurbooks.com
January 2012
ISBN# 978-0-312-61457-7
Hardcover (also available as e-book and audio book)
357 Pages
$25.99
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2012
reviews, news and more http://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/
March 20, 2017
I've always meant to eventually read this series but other more pressing books keep jumping the queue. I'm so glad my book club put this book as one to read because at first I thought they'd lost their mind - who starts at series at book 16! Well this is a prequel to the whole series so that makes sense now.
I've heard that Anna Pigeon is supposed to be a super stoic hard ass, now I know why. I can't imagine after all she's been through in this book that she would want to stay around but then again I'm a big fat chicken and would have left way earlier crying and hugging myself while I rocked back and forth.
The only complaint, but it's a big one which left this book at 4 stars, is that she would never be naive enough to keep being alone with someone who acts off and no matter what the author writes, she wouldn't have felt that sorry for her or been that nice unless she also had a screw loose.
I've heard that Anna Pigeon is supposed to be a super stoic hard ass, now I know why. I can't imagine after all she's been through in this book that she would want to stay around but then again I'm a big fat chicken and would have left way earlier crying and hugging myself while I rocked back and forth.
The only complaint, but it's a big one which left this book at 4 stars, is that she would never be naive enough to keep being alone with someone who acts off and no matter what the author writes, she wouldn't have felt that sorry for her or been that nice unless she also had a screw loose.
July 9, 2022
I read this one in two days. It is #17 in the Anna Pigeon series. I have only two more to go in this series unless she publishes another.
In The Rope, Nevada Barr goes back to Anna's first job in a National Park. She fled NYC after the death of her husband and took the unglamorous job of a seasonal employee at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. This park is built around man made Lake Powell in Utah which is now one of the scenes of our vanishing water supply, ten years after the novel was published.
On Anna's first day off, she goes for a walk and vanishes. Thus, with no further ado, the reader is thrust into a tale of man's inhumanity to women.
A very impressive and sensitive look into the consequences for women after rape, female friendship, same sex love, as well as female insanity. A lot of violence but also showing how strong, brave, smart and resourceful women can be.
In The Rope, Nevada Barr goes back to Anna's first job in a National Park. She fled NYC after the death of her husband and took the unglamorous job of a seasonal employee at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. This park is built around man made Lake Powell in Utah which is now one of the scenes of our vanishing water supply, ten years after the novel was published.
On Anna's first day off, she goes for a walk and vanishes. Thus, with no further ado, the reader is thrust into a tale of man's inhumanity to women.
A very impressive and sensitive look into the consequences for women after rape, female friendship, same sex love, as well as female insanity. A lot of violence but also showing how strong, brave, smart and resourceful women can be.
April 2, 2020
This is not my favorite Anna Pigeon book, but I have read far worse. The plot is basically carried by Anna being an idiot and not telling law enforcement the whole truth. The two main protagonists, Regis and Bethy, are not very believable and there is just too much time spent rock climbing. Also Buddy disappears from the book without Anna even checking on his welfare. Recommended only to Anna Pigeon fans.
February 1, 2012
I didn’t think I’d like that this was a prequel, but I ended up really enjoying it. I liked learning about Anna’s life in NYC before she started her stints as a ranger in the national park system and learning why she decided to become a law enforcement national park ranger.
The story was deliciously scary, a bit too scary for me, but not by a lot, especially because it was a prequel so I knew Anna would survive. I did worry endlessly about another character though. Not saying here whether or not there was reason to do so.
There were some wonderfully skillfully done red herrings. Did I guess right? Yes. Did I guess the reason? Pretty much. Did it ruin the book for me? Not really. But: oh, Anna, Anna, Anna: I don’t like being smarter than the main character, especially when in most things she’s very bright. That was a bit annoying, enough so to maybe dock a half star.
As is usual for this series, this book is beautifully and poetically written.
And I got to find out about yet another national park, and that is one of my favorite things about this series. I love learning vicariously because I’ve been to so few national parks.
The story was deliciously scary, a bit too scary for me, but not by a lot, especially because it was a prequel so I knew Anna would survive. I did worry endlessly about another character though. Not saying here whether or not there was reason to do so.
There were some wonderfully skillfully done red herrings. Did I guess right? Yes. Did I guess the reason? Pretty much. Did it ruin the book for me? Not really. But: oh, Anna, Anna, Anna: I don’t like being smarter than the main character, especially when in most things she’s very bright. That was a bit annoying, enough so to maybe dock a half star.
As is usual for this series, this book is beautifully and poetically written.
And I got to find out about yet another national park, and that is one of my favorite things about this series. I love learning vicariously because I’ve been to so few national parks.
August 10, 2016
#2016-aty-reading challenge--week 25: A book whose main character is in a profession that interests you. (park ranger)
I've enjoyed the Anna Pigeon mystery series for years; each one is set in a different national park which is fascinating. In the 17th book, Nevada Barr takes a step back and shows us how it all began. Anna has been a widow for five years and has decided to leave her job as stage manager in NYC and try a summer job as a seasonal park ranger in Glen Canyon, Arizona. Right from the start, Anna is in trouble and the action never stops.
If you've never read any of these books, this would be a fine place to start. I may go back and revisit the entire series to celebrate 100 years of our national park system (August 25th, 2016.)
I've enjoyed the Anna Pigeon mystery series for years; each one is set in a different national park which is fascinating. In the 17th book, Nevada Barr takes a step back and shows us how it all began. Anna has been a widow for five years and has decided to leave her job as stage manager in NYC and try a summer job as a seasonal park ranger in Glen Canyon, Arizona. Right from the start, Anna is in trouble and the action never stops.
If you've never read any of these books, this would be a fine place to start. I may go back and revisit the entire series to celebrate 100 years of our national park system (August 25th, 2016.)
December 21, 2014
Barr's terrible writing continues. You want to buy her a sack of pronouns. You want to devise a drinking game for every time the words bones, muscles, and skull are put into service.
Not confident enough in her own scene writing, Barr makes constant references to other novels. "My life is a Stephen King novel," Anna tells us. "Maybe she'd get lucky, like the girl kept in the stone pit in the basement in Silence of the Lambs..." "Like the writers of Old Yeller or The Yearling, had the fates given her this warm little soul only so the monster could take it away in some gruesome fashion?" "As the men were going all Last of the Mohicans..."
Then, because Anna has just left a job as a theater stage manager in New York, we get endless, and I do mean endless, tiresome references to plays and theater events and actors and backstage habits.
It was a timely read, though, because like Bill Cosby, someone kidnaps Anna, strips her naked, drops her down a deep "solution hole," (okay, admittedly no one has accused Cosby of throwing them down a solution hole - yet...) and drugs the water canteen left with her. Then, while she sleeps a deep drugged sleep, they carve WHORE into her thigh. Oh, also, there's the corpse of another woman down there with her. But that turns out to be a good thing, because she gets to borrow the other woman's Timex watch, shorts, and bikini top. By p. 120, Anna has managed to escape from the solution hole, leaving 237 pages of figuring out who the kidnapper/killer is, and providing 18 different occasions on which Anna is trapped in some crevice, hole, or body of water and left to die.
And then there's Anna's lesbian National Park Service co-worker, who falls deeply in love with Anna and becomes very possessive. Jenny is the survivor of a horrible gang rape in college, and Anna, though she wasn't raped, has survived being naked and physically, mentally and psychologically abused for several days and having WHORE carved in her thigh. You might think Jenny would treat Anna with sensitivity. No touching! No flirting! Yet Jenny keeps touching Anna and trying to flirt with her. (Anna is heterosexual.) On a hike/rock climb, Jenny wears her sexiest lacy red panties and bra, just in case she gets lucky with Anna. And lo and behold, they end up in the water, nearly dying, and Jenny has to strip down to her panties and bra! There is a God after all! Does Anna succumb to the power of Jenny's undergarments? No. Can you guess why? It's because she's not a lesbian! Yet Jenny creepily thinks, after they have cheated death and are back home, "As first dates went, this wasn't the worst she'd had."
January 14, 2021
The Rope has all the entertaining elements we've come to expect from the series. Anna Pigeon gets herself into one scrape after another and seems to encounter more than her share of diabolical characters. As a former NPS employee, Nevada Barr has insider knowledge about the life. This installment also includes an important ecological message about the serious problem of human waste disposal at Lake Powell. Be sure to follow those proper pooping protocols!
I'm giving this 4.5 stars. I was introduced to her writing with a book club an episode called "Blind Descent" which I feel is one of her best works. It was great. Sometimes a prequel can be a bomb and just plain die, but Barr does a good job of picking this one up and sets the scene for how she become a ranger and how the law becomes an important part of her career. This is a fun mystery taking us back to 1995, when Anna Pigeon took her first job with the National Park Service. It's a prequel, so you need not have read any of the other books in the series before reading this one. If you're a long-time Anna Pigeon fan, you'll enjoy seeing her as a rookie. She's new to the outdoor life and not yet in law enforcement.
Recently widowed and drowning in despair, Anna takes an entry-level job at Lake Powell. As yet she has no wilderness savvy. On her day off she hikes out into the desert with no hat and not enough water or food. When she doesn't return, her co-workers think she has decamped and headed back to New York City. Seasonal employees don't always stick around, so no one thinks much about it. Especially because her belongings have also disappeared from her room.
As it turns out, Anna has been attacked and dropped into a deep hollow or "jar" in the sandstone. She wakes with almost no memory of what happened, and no way to get out of the jar. As she faces an ordeal of hunger and thirst, expecting to die, she uncovers some alarming clues and begins to discover how resourceful she can be in a crisis.
Recommend.
I'm giving this 4.5 stars. I was introduced to her writing with a book club an episode called "Blind Descent" which I feel is one of her best works. It was great. Sometimes a prequel can be a bomb and just plain die, but Barr does a good job of picking this one up and sets the scene for how she become a ranger and how the law becomes an important part of her career. This is a fun mystery taking us back to 1995, when Anna Pigeon took her first job with the National Park Service. It's a prequel, so you need not have read any of the other books in the series before reading this one. If you're a long-time Anna Pigeon fan, you'll enjoy seeing her as a rookie. She's new to the outdoor life and not yet in law enforcement.
Recently widowed and drowning in despair, Anna takes an entry-level job at Lake Powell. As yet she has no wilderness savvy. On her day off she hikes out into the desert with no hat and not enough water or food. When she doesn't return, her co-workers think she has decamped and headed back to New York City. Seasonal employees don't always stick around, so no one thinks much about it. Especially because her belongings have also disappeared from her room.
As it turns out, Anna has been attacked and dropped into a deep hollow or "jar" in the sandstone. She wakes with almost no memory of what happened, and no way to get out of the jar. As she faces an ordeal of hunger and thirst, expecting to die, she uncovers some alarming clues and begins to discover how resourceful she can be in a crisis.
Recommend.
April 25, 2015
Nevada Barr knows how to build incredible suspense that does not feel at all contrived, but a natural, sometimes violent, outflow of previous events. In The Rope she again builds a compelling story, one that takes us back to a much younger Anna Pigeon who is just starting her first job with the National Park Service. Anna unwittingly walks upon a crime in progress, and awakes to find herself nude, in a pit surrounded by high sheer walls, somewhere in the canyons around Lake Powell, just above Grand Canyon. This book took me back somewhat to "Blind Descent", the sixth book of the Anna Pigeon series, where Anna is crawling through the caves near Carlsbad Caverns. The same kind of trapped terror is experienced here, with the added dangers of the beating sun and no water. Barr continues to make this series captivating and entertaining.
July 6, 2012
For 16 books, readers have known Anna Pigeon as a courageous and resourceful Park Ranger with a bit of a loner streak and a tendency to drown her sorrows in alcohol. Before Anna entered the Park Service, however, she was a happily married Stage Manager in New York City. In The Rope, Barr takes us back to the very beginning of Anna's new life away from the hustle & bustle of the big city. Grieving the death of her husband Zack and needing to escape the city they shared together, Anna takes a seasonal position at the Glen Canyon Recreation Area. Her inexperience shows as she sets off on a challenging hike wearing city clothes/shoes and carrying far too little water. Somehow, she ends up at the bottom of a natural pit with no memory of how she got there. Fighting thirst and delirium, she struggles to piece together what happened: did she fall or was she pushed? Meanwhile, her coworkers assume she's decided the National Park Service isn't for her and returned to the city - someone has removed her belongings from the cabin she shares with Jenny.
I always find it difficult to set aside an Anna Pigeon novel but this was absolutely impossible to put down - I mean, Anna's at the bottom of a pit in the desert and no one even knows to look for her. Yowza. Her wilderness survival skills are zero but she's smart - and now that she's facing death, she realizes that she does want to continue living, even without Zack. I loved seeing Anna's transformation from someone just going through the motions of life to the strong, determined character we know today. I also loved seeing this former city-girl learn to love nature. Jenny and Buddy are awesome - I love how Buddy makes Anna realize that there are companions she would share her last drops of water with. As always, Barr brings the beauty of our parks to life but I was surprised at how well she tied Anna's former life in the theater to her current circumstances - Anna's use of her theater background to plan her escape was brilliant.
Barr's always been skilled at crafting a solid mystery but she outdoes herself this time, planting a good bit of misdirection. I reread The Rope almost immediately after finishing it because I wanted to catch the clues I hadn't fully appreciated the first time around. I remain convinced that there is more than one villain in this story - one was just less twisted than the other.
I always find it difficult to set aside an Anna Pigeon novel but this was absolutely impossible to put down - I mean, Anna's at the bottom of a pit in the desert and no one even knows to look for her. Yowza. Her wilderness survival skills are zero but she's smart - and now that she's facing death, she realizes that she does want to continue living, even without Zack. I loved seeing Anna's transformation from someone just going through the motions of life to the strong, determined character we know today. I also loved seeing this former city-girl learn to love nature. Jenny and Buddy are awesome - I love how Buddy makes Anna realize that there are companions she would share her last drops of water with. As always, Barr brings the beauty of our parks to life but I was surprised at how well she tied Anna's former life in the theater to her current circumstances - Anna's use of her theater background to plan her escape was brilliant.
Barr's always been skilled at crafting a solid mystery but she outdoes herself this time, planting a good bit of misdirection. I reread The Rope almost immediately after finishing it because I wanted to catch the clues I hadn't fully appreciated the first time around. I remain convinced that there is more than one villain in this story - one was just less twisted than the other.
August 13, 2013
I very much enjoyed this prequel to the Anna Pigeon Park Ranger series. She is newly widowed, barely existing emotionally, and takes a part time job as a temp park employee to get away from her old haunts. She's put on "poop patrol" at Lake Powell. Decidedly unglamorous, but here she discovers the wonder and beauty of nature that leads to her choice to become a full time park ranger: "The dam and the lake did everything a good piece of art should: provoked, evoked, inspired, incensed, amazed." She becomes uncomfortably aware of how out-of-shape she is for such a job, but discovers within herself the gritty determination and guts that serve her well the rest of her life.
We are introduced to young Anna in the opening pages, down a natural well-shaped hole in the sandstone formations, naked and concussed with no idea how she got there and less of how she'll get out. "Trying to remember was like trying to see with the tip of her finger"--a good example of Nevada Barr's great skill with words. Her ability to describe stress, suffering, and excruciating passage of time are evident in the novel. And besides great writing, action-filled plots, excellent characterization, and great suspense (although not always the best mystery), Barr adds lots of ideas to ponder.
One running idea in The Rope is comparing Anna's skills in her old job as a stage manager with being a park ranger. For instance, "Anna dressed in black, as did the crew, so if the audience accidentally caught a glimpse of her it would make little impression. She cultivated a soft low voice so backstage noise wouldn't compete with the show onstage. She wore soft-soled shoes and moved quietly. She did not bump into things or set curtains moving as she passed through. She could see well in the dark." This learned invisibility, paying attention to detail "so none of the thousands of threads that must be woven together to create the director's vision was lost, late or broken," and an internal clock to time movement on the stage were all details of her job as a stage manager that she brings in contrast with her new job. I found that fascinating and the writing engrossing. Barr's books are often kind of dark, she often explores themes of homosexuality (which she did in this book), and she is sometimes a bit didactic about caring for the environment, but her writing is stellar and she captures my attention.
We are introduced to young Anna in the opening pages, down a natural well-shaped hole in the sandstone formations, naked and concussed with no idea how she got there and less of how she'll get out. "Trying to remember was like trying to see with the tip of her finger"--a good example of Nevada Barr's great skill with words. Her ability to describe stress, suffering, and excruciating passage of time are evident in the novel. And besides great writing, action-filled plots, excellent characterization, and great suspense (although not always the best mystery), Barr adds lots of ideas to ponder.
One running idea in The Rope is comparing Anna's skills in her old job as a stage manager with being a park ranger. For instance, "Anna dressed in black, as did the crew, so if the audience accidentally caught a glimpse of her it would make little impression. She cultivated a soft low voice so backstage noise wouldn't compete with the show onstage. She wore soft-soled shoes and moved quietly. She did not bump into things or set curtains moving as she passed through. She could see well in the dark." This learned invisibility, paying attention to detail "so none of the thousands of threads that must be woven together to create the director's vision was lost, late or broken," and an internal clock to time movement on the stage were all details of her job as a stage manager that she brings in contrast with her new job. I found that fascinating and the writing engrossing. Barr's books are often kind of dark, she often explores themes of homosexuality (which she did in this book), and she is sometimes a bit didactic about caring for the environment, but her writing is stellar and she captures my attention.
May 20, 2012
I used to love Nevada Barr, and read all of her books, and when I went out of my mystery phase, I kept picking up books, so I could restart where I left off. So there are several recent ones I haven't read. But since this was a prequel, I felt safe in reading it. I thought it harkened back to some of my favorites, like Firestorm and A Superior Death. Like those, I was there, at Glen Canyon. Not just looking over the author's shoulder, but there - in the desert heat, in the cold waters of the lake. She has a knack of placing you squarely in the middle of the action - in Firestorm I was in a "shake and bake" and in A Superior Death I was freezing in the lake (I grew up around there in Minnesota). She has the ability to transport me to places unknown unlike any other author I have read. That said, it was a wonderful glimpse into how Anna Pigeon got to be who she was, and why. What fires forged the Anna of the later books. The action was real. There as some foul language, but not that much, and in character I thought, and some lesbian lust, never acted on, by her roommate, but all in all, it kept me guessing as to who the real villain was. Not many to choose from really, but which one of those that fit the bill - back and forth. The action ranged from a solution hole (a big sinkhole in the mesa), to the depths of the slot canyons in Lake Powell, at Glen Canyon. Freezing in the waters at night. There wasn't much real violence, as is true for the series in general, but what little there was was visceral. Terrifying. And the addition of "Buddy" the baby skunk, was a nice touch of lightness. At least one of the reviews on Amazon thought it was a farce or comedy, but I never got that impression at all. I thought it straightforward, although with some lightheartedness to balance the evil. Amazon readers gave it a 4 overall, but there were a lot of 5s. And I never found it not credible. My father worked as a fire ranger at Yellowstone, and my sister and her husband worked at the Grand Canyon, he was a Park Ranger, so I have some background in the parks, esp. since I got dragged to most of the ones in the Western U.S. at least once in my growing up years. ;-)
July 23, 2013
This prequel to the Anna Pigeon series rocks, no pun intended.I came away from this one with a better sense of Anna as a physical being than ever before. She is one small, tough woman! The story begins with Anna trapped in what turns out to be a solution hole. She is alone, confused, and trapped, but not helpless, never helpless. Though she has virtually no experience in the parks and certainly none in law enforcement, Anna is resilient and resourceful, good at getting out of seemingly impossible situations.
As always, even though Anna is the heroine, the park itself takes almost equal billing. Barr's descriptions of places I've never been and never will be [canyoneering? I don't think so] are more than visual--she gives a sense of the feel and mood of a place, it's beauty and dangers. These parks are simultaneously stark and lyrical.
The story itself includes a too-easy acceptance of surface explanations by all involved, acceptance that puts Anna at further risk. There are also an excessive number of brushes with death. Even though we know this is a prequel and, thus, she comes out of it all alive, these are heart-thumping, and after a while, I felt a bit "played." The love story piece is very tender, a dramatic contrast to the volatile marriage next-door.
Despite some flaws, this is a great read. I have a much better sense of Anna Pigeon now, and just might have to go back and reread some of the earlier books in the series, though this new lens.
As always, even though Anna is the heroine, the park itself takes almost equal billing. Barr's descriptions of places I've never been and never will be [canyoneering? I don't think so] are more than visual--she gives a sense of the feel and mood of a place, it's beauty and dangers. These parks are simultaneously stark and lyrical.
The story itself includes a too-easy acceptance of surface explanations by all involved, acceptance that puts Anna at further risk. There are also an excessive number of brushes with death. Even though we know this is a prequel and, thus, she comes out of it all alive, these are heart-thumping, and after a while, I felt a bit "played." The love story piece is very tender, a dramatic contrast to the volatile marriage next-door.
Despite some flaws, this is a great read. I have a much better sense of Anna Pigeon now, and just might have to go back and reread some of the earlier books in the series, though this new lens.
April 28, 2012
Anna Pigeon’s first case? That’s how “The Rope” is billed. Nevada Barr holds Anna back. She is forced to restrain Anna, to show her first taste of getting on a killer’s trail.
In the first big chunk of “The Rope,” Anna finds herself stuck in a hole—a “solution” hole—near a remote marina on Lake Powell. The remote marina is called Dangling Rope. It’s a real place (been there many times) but Barr adds lots of actual dangling ropes to the plot and the climax finishes with, yes, a rope and a cliff.
Anna works to sort out what happened to her and here we get a glimpse of her analytical mind, but just enough to see how she breaks things down.
The energy level of “The Rope” is more a thriller than a straight mystery approach; Barr even gives us alternative points of view of the action, including that of female roommate who is attracted to the mysterious new worker (Anna) fresh in from the big city.
“The Rope” might be a touch more violent than standard Nevada Barr fare (if there is such a thing as standard Nevada Barr fare) and it’s somewhat crude, too. But it’s tame by ‘dragon tattoo’ standards, for instance.
The ending was a bit over the top for my tastes. But if you’re an Anna Pigeon fan, I think you have to admire Barr’s effort to give us a glimpse of the early years and the early mindset that led to many terrific stories to come.
In the first big chunk of “The Rope,” Anna finds herself stuck in a hole—a “solution” hole—near a remote marina on Lake Powell. The remote marina is called Dangling Rope. It’s a real place (been there many times) but Barr adds lots of actual dangling ropes to the plot and the climax finishes with, yes, a rope and a cliff.
Anna works to sort out what happened to her and here we get a glimpse of her analytical mind, but just enough to see how she breaks things down.
The energy level of “The Rope” is more a thriller than a straight mystery approach; Barr even gives us alternative points of view of the action, including that of female roommate who is attracted to the mysterious new worker (Anna) fresh in from the big city.
“The Rope” might be a touch more violent than standard Nevada Barr fare (if there is such a thing as standard Nevada Barr fare) and it’s somewhat crude, too. But it’s tame by ‘dragon tattoo’ standards, for instance.
The ending was a bit over the top for my tastes. But if you’re an Anna Pigeon fan, I think you have to admire Barr’s effort to give us a glimpse of the early years and the early mindset that led to many terrific stories to come.
July 30, 2012
A satisfying prequel to the series of 16 mysteries featuring National Park Service Ranger Anna Pigeon (a new delight for me with only one under my belt). With this tale, we get Anna at age 35 escaping New York City and the tragic loss of her husband by assuming a temporary park ranger position at Lake Mead in Arizona. As revealed on book jacket, she hikes in the Glen Canyon Park on her day off and disappears. While her co-workers assume she left permanently, she finds herself imprisoned at the bottom of a rock pit, naked, injured, and befogged from being drugged. Her ability to use her wits and courage to get out of these and other challenging situations in the tale depends on her skills in observing and reading people, which in turn derives from her career as a theater stage manager and her psychiatrist sister. The beauty of using national parks as a venue for the series lies in the contrast between the isolation and splendor of the natural world and the evils brought there by the diverse humans who come to enjoy or misuse the resources there. In this story, irresponsible, privileged college kids and twisted colleagues are the targets of her sleuthing and sources of her perils.
March 14, 2012
I eagerly anticipated reading about Anna's first park, her introduction to her readers (and to herself) regarding being a ranger. I was not disappointed in this prequel.
I found the insights into Anna's emotions and her motivation to get away from NYC and from people to be a stark picture of her grief touched upon in later books. The references to Anna's theater background were illuminating; she was a fully rounded person before she became a ranger with 'city-girl' experiences and naivete regarding the outdoors, but a canny and sophisticated understanding of humanity and the human mind.
As in later books, the off scene character of Molly is a ready foil and an astute reader of the psyche of mankind, and I loved the descriptions of the slot canyons, vivid landscape, brilliantly cold water and heat of the Glen Canyon National Recreation area. I was amazed at Anna's transformation from a victim to a stolid, capable and strong park employee able to defend and protect - we see the spark and the motivation as her passion for the park service begins to blossom.
I found the insights into Anna's emotions and her motivation to get away from NYC and from people to be a stark picture of her grief touched upon in later books. The references to Anna's theater background were illuminating; she was a fully rounded person before she became a ranger with 'city-girl' experiences and naivete regarding the outdoors, but a canny and sophisticated understanding of humanity and the human mind.
As in later books, the off scene character of Molly is a ready foil and an astute reader of the psyche of mankind, and I loved the descriptions of the slot canyons, vivid landscape, brilliantly cold water and heat of the Glen Canyon National Recreation area. I was amazed at Anna's transformation from a victim to a stolid, capable and strong park employee able to defend and protect - we see the spark and the motivation as her passion for the park service begins to blossom.
August 3, 2019
I did not like this book. Toward the end I was still listening to find out who the "bad guy" was but after a while, I just didn't care anymore and felt it was a waste of my time. I have enjoyed the Anna Pigeon character in previous books, but this book was not enjoyable for me. Too much time was given to what was going on inside the characters heads. I got so tired of everything being compared to the theater life Anna had previously. The sky couldn't just be blue - it had to be the blue of the stage curtain that was used with so-and-so play and when so-and-so actor was performing!
In addition there are characters that seem to act crazy and then sane then crazy again. Anna kept getting into life-threating situations over and over that just didn't make sense. About the third one, I gave up. Perhaps if I had stayed with the book until the end, all these things may have made sense, but I just wasn't into it anymore.
In addition there are characters that seem to act crazy and then sane then crazy again. Anna kept getting into life-threating situations over and over that just didn't make sense. About the third one, I gave up. Perhaps if I had stayed with the book until the end, all these things may have made sense, but I just wasn't into it anymore.
August 14, 2012
Finally . . . a Anna Pigeon suspense novel that's not completely dark and gruesome. This novel is a prequel that in storyworld predates all the other Anna books and explains a lot of her emotional baggage.
Still, what a relief from the last few. And while I love suspense and adventure, 13 1/2 and Burn had such a darkness of soul about them—my soul felt unclean after reading them. Some of the explicit, graphic parts about children made me nauseous.
As a former resident of New Orleans I noticed the darkness in her recent books started about the same time as Ms. Barr's relocation to that city. I hope there is no correlation. I hope we're back to the Anna Pigeon I love.
Still, what a relief from the last few. And while I love suspense and adventure, 13 1/2 and Burn had such a darkness of soul about them—my soul felt unclean after reading them. Some of the explicit, graphic parts about children made me nauseous.
As a former resident of New Orleans I noticed the darkness in her recent books started about the same time as Ms. Barr's relocation to that city. I hope there is no correlation. I hope we're back to the Anna Pigeon I love.
March 30, 2020
After sixteen Anna Pigeon novels, Nevada Barr takes readers back to 1995 when Anna Pigeon was 35 years old. What begins a temporary seasonal job at Glen Canyon will catapult Anna Pigeon into National Park Service for years to come. We are given some backstory, with lots of references to the theater industry and her resolution of guilt over the ending of a relationship.
Barr is a gifted novelist, mixing humor, drama and survivalist knowledge in often unpredictable settings of nature. I haven't read all of the Anna Pigeon novels, but I have enjoyed all of the ones I've read as well as several stand-alone novels and I plan to keep reading more books by this talented author.
Favorite Passages:
Seasonal employees came from all over the country. Many were young, unattached, seldom called home even when they were stationed near a phone. Nobody but the rangers they worked with would notice they were AWOL for days, weeks, even months.
The perfect victims for the perfect crime. The crime had to be done alone and enjoyed alone, no telling, no boasting, no hinting. Once two people were involved in anything it ceased to be perfect. Two people couldn't keep a secret. Two people would turn against each other.
_______
The unnatural lake was not gentle with sand-and-shell beaches and cattails in the shallows, but fever green in a dead world. An inland sea in hell or on Mars under the merciless blue of a hard rock sky. It suited Anna.
Unreal, or surreal, stark and freakish, the landscape could hold no memories. The past was burned to dust by the sun and blown away on winds that were seldom still.
Could hold no memories.
_______
Not sea level, not flat, not paved not Manhattan: not a place she could walk a hundred miles.
Slumping to her knees, she stared back the way she had come. Staff housing was tiny with distance, heat making the gray-on-gray shimmer as if the houses were slipping from this dimension into another and, if she watched long enough, would disappear altogether.
_______
Prisoner. The word stuck crosswise in her brain, striking ice crystals from bone. Someone or something had taken her and imprisoned her, stolen her clothes, her watch, her ID, stolen who she was, and hid the leftovers in a pit like garbage.
Or, like leftovers: to be eaten later.
_______
Halfway across her prison floor a noise from the other world stopped her.
_______
Desert varnish painted the cliffs to either side of the channel, intricate designs in black and red, traceries that looked like the finest lace ever tatted, then slipped into the strong strokes of an irate painter with a burning vision of the universe, only to be offset by a whimsical natural cartoon resembling Snoopy or Betty Boop, or the abstract swish of a soaring bird.
________
Streets could be mean, cities romantic or dangerous, deadly or ugly. That which people made with their hands absorbed human emotions, radiated them back.
Nature, she realized, was indifferent.
________
Night was coming and, with it, Monster Man with his thigh-carving equipment.
She decided she would take the chance and eat the other sandwich he'd left. If, indeed, the second waxed-paper package was a sandwich and not the fingers of children or dog turds.
_______
When we get out.
Anna heard the words come into her ears.
_______
Itches she dared not scratch, thirst she dared not quench, cramping muscles she dared not stretch . . .
________
The night grew so still, the moonlight fading, the stars achingly bright overhead, that Anna felt unreal, as if she dreamed the whole thing, as if she were dreaming still.
Then came a voice into the world, soft and gentle.
"Anna? What have you done?"
_______
"Where were you? What happened? Are you hurt? Why do you have a baby skunk? What happened to your things? How did you hurt your shoulder? Didn't you go back to New York? Why did you leave your birth control pills? Where have you been? Where have you been? What happened to you? Were you kidnapped? Did you fall into a ravine?"
_______
Back in the jar, a thousand years ago and yesterday, she'd thought she'd won free of fear. Evidently it was an ever renewable resource.
_______
"Four days?" The number surprised her. Surely it had been a year or a month. In less than a week she had been taken and changed as completely as anyone beamed up by aliens and subjected to medical procedures, their glands replaced by monkey glands or whatever the fashion of alien abduction was at the moment.
_______
Sounds of the living comforted Anna even as they rasped on nerves grown accustomed to the deep and abiding silence of sandstone. She would have to find that silence again, go back into the stone. But not until she knew how to come back out.
_______
Jenny had seen her. Being unseen was one of Anna's skills.
_______
"Would you roll me a cigarette?" Anna asked suddenly.
"You don't smoke," Jenny said, oddly appalled by the request.
"I didn't think I did," Anna said, "but it's beginning to look like there's nothing I won't stoop to."
_______
Other than food and clothes the greatest gift she could give Anna was faith, utter and complete belief in her every word: If Anna said she saw pixies or skin walkers or flying saucers Jenny must believe.
"I know you're telling the truth," Jenny said.
"No you don't," Anna said. "Even I'm not sure what my truth is."
_______
Snow White - the Disney animated version - had warped the minds of an entire generation of women. They thought the creatures of the forest would frolic on their skirts, dance with them.
_______
"You can't keep him, you know," Jenny said gently.
"I know," Anna said.
"Even if you de-stink a skunk, they don't make good pets. They're wild animals."
"I know," Anna said.
"Even if you did de-stink him and he did make a great pet, you couldn't keep him in seasonal housing."
"I know," Anna said.
"Even if you didn't keep him in seasonal housing, you couldn't feed him. Feeding wild animals in parks and rec areas is verboten."
Anna knew that, too.
_______
"I think you're in the clear on this," he said.
"Thanks," Anna said acidly. "Can I go back to being a victim now?"
The district ranger put his ball cap on, tugging the brim down low over his eyes. "Never go back to being a victim" he said.
_______
. . . afraid that in this surreal place, where Disney and Dali and T. S. Eliot fought over landscape design . . .
_______
"Shoulder went out? Did your shoulder pop out?" Jenny demanded.
"No. I think it started to," Anna managed. "I could feel the bone slide, but I'm pretty sure it went back. . . . . I feel like a puppet that wasn't put together very well."
_______
"The joint seems full of corpses tonight," Jenny said.
_______
"What made you so afraid of living?" Jenny asked.
_______
"Back when I was me. I used to work out with my housemate. She was really into it. Here, I'll show you like she showed me."
Back when I was me. The phrase unsettled Anna. She must remember to ask Molly about it when next they talked.
_______
"Honey, I"m home!" Whimsy died a sudden death. The swamp cooler was off and the front room empty.
_______
This summer there were redheads carved with the word WHORE, crucified pink pygmy rattlesnakes, ropes that vanished, and water that killed.
_______
"Not to seem callous or anything, but once you've had the opportunity to really get to know some dead people, you find out they're not half bad."
_______
"What are you doing?" Anna called.
"I'm eating your potato chips," Bethy yelled back, her voice full of malice. "I'm going to eat your whole lunch."
_______
"He hates you. He said you're ugly as dog shit on the side of a new shoe."
_______
"How about hitting and stripping me? Did you tell them that was standard operating procedure as well?"
"I didn't tell 'em anything. They were stupid, but they kinda knew something was hinky. They just wanted it to be okay, so they pretended it was okay and I pretended it was okay, and we left."
Barr is a gifted novelist, mixing humor, drama and survivalist knowledge in often unpredictable settings of nature. I haven't read all of the Anna Pigeon novels, but I have enjoyed all of the ones I've read as well as several stand-alone novels and I plan to keep reading more books by this talented author.
Favorite Passages:
Seasonal employees came from all over the country. Many were young, unattached, seldom called home even when they were stationed near a phone. Nobody but the rangers they worked with would notice they were AWOL for days, weeks, even months.
The perfect victims for the perfect crime. The crime had to be done alone and enjoyed alone, no telling, no boasting, no hinting. Once two people were involved in anything it ceased to be perfect. Two people couldn't keep a secret. Two people would turn against each other.
_______
The unnatural lake was not gentle with sand-and-shell beaches and cattails in the shallows, but fever green in a dead world. An inland sea in hell or on Mars under the merciless blue of a hard rock sky. It suited Anna.
Unreal, or surreal, stark and freakish, the landscape could hold no memories. The past was burned to dust by the sun and blown away on winds that were seldom still.
Could hold no memories.
_______
Not sea level, not flat, not paved not Manhattan: not a place she could walk a hundred miles.
Slumping to her knees, she stared back the way she had come. Staff housing was tiny with distance, heat making the gray-on-gray shimmer as if the houses were slipping from this dimension into another and, if she watched long enough, would disappear altogether.
_______
Prisoner. The word stuck crosswise in her brain, striking ice crystals from bone. Someone or something had taken her and imprisoned her, stolen her clothes, her watch, her ID, stolen who she was, and hid the leftovers in a pit like garbage.
Or, like leftovers: to be eaten later.
_______
Halfway across her prison floor a noise from the other world stopped her.
_______
Desert varnish painted the cliffs to either side of the channel, intricate designs in black and red, traceries that looked like the finest lace ever tatted, then slipped into the strong strokes of an irate painter with a burning vision of the universe, only to be offset by a whimsical natural cartoon resembling Snoopy or Betty Boop, or the abstract swish of a soaring bird.
________
Streets could be mean, cities romantic or dangerous, deadly or ugly. That which people made with their hands absorbed human emotions, radiated them back.
Nature, she realized, was indifferent.
________
Night was coming and, with it, Monster Man with his thigh-carving equipment.
She decided she would take the chance and eat the other sandwich he'd left. If, indeed, the second waxed-paper package was a sandwich and not the fingers of children or dog turds.
_______
When we get out.
Anna heard the words come into her ears.
_______
Itches she dared not scratch, thirst she dared not quench, cramping muscles she dared not stretch . . .
________
The night grew so still, the moonlight fading, the stars achingly bright overhead, that Anna felt unreal, as if she dreamed the whole thing, as if she were dreaming still.
Then came a voice into the world, soft and gentle.
"Anna? What have you done?"
_______
"Where were you? What happened? Are you hurt? Why do you have a baby skunk? What happened to your things? How did you hurt your shoulder? Didn't you go back to New York? Why did you leave your birth control pills? Where have you been? Where have you been? What happened to you? Were you kidnapped? Did you fall into a ravine?"
_______
Back in the jar, a thousand years ago and yesterday, she'd thought she'd won free of fear. Evidently it was an ever renewable resource.
_______
"Four days?" The number surprised her. Surely it had been a year or a month. In less than a week she had been taken and changed as completely as anyone beamed up by aliens and subjected to medical procedures, their glands replaced by monkey glands or whatever the fashion of alien abduction was at the moment.
_______
Sounds of the living comforted Anna even as they rasped on nerves grown accustomed to the deep and abiding silence of sandstone. She would have to find that silence again, go back into the stone. But not until she knew how to come back out.
_______
Jenny had seen her. Being unseen was one of Anna's skills.
_______
"Would you roll me a cigarette?" Anna asked suddenly.
"You don't smoke," Jenny said, oddly appalled by the request.
"I didn't think I did," Anna said, "but it's beginning to look like there's nothing I won't stoop to."
_______
Other than food and clothes the greatest gift she could give Anna was faith, utter and complete belief in her every word: If Anna said she saw pixies or skin walkers or flying saucers Jenny must believe.
"I know you're telling the truth," Jenny said.
"No you don't," Anna said. "Even I'm not sure what my truth is."
_______
Snow White - the Disney animated version - had warped the minds of an entire generation of women. They thought the creatures of the forest would frolic on their skirts, dance with them.
_______
"You can't keep him, you know," Jenny said gently.
"I know," Anna said.
"Even if you de-stink a skunk, they don't make good pets. They're wild animals."
"I know," Anna said.
"Even if you did de-stink him and he did make a great pet, you couldn't keep him in seasonal housing."
"I know," Anna said.
"Even if you didn't keep him in seasonal housing, you couldn't feed him. Feeding wild animals in parks and rec areas is verboten."
Anna knew that, too.
_______
"I think you're in the clear on this," he said.
"Thanks," Anna said acidly. "Can I go back to being a victim now?"
The district ranger put his ball cap on, tugging the brim down low over his eyes. "Never go back to being a victim" he said.
_______
. . . afraid that in this surreal place, where Disney and Dali and T. S. Eliot fought over landscape design . . .
_______
"Shoulder went out? Did your shoulder pop out?" Jenny demanded.
"No. I think it started to," Anna managed. "I could feel the bone slide, but I'm pretty sure it went back. . . . . I feel like a puppet that wasn't put together very well."
_______
"The joint seems full of corpses tonight," Jenny said.
_______
"What made you so afraid of living?" Jenny asked.
_______
"Back when I was me. I used to work out with my housemate. She was really into it. Here, I'll show you like she showed me."
Back when I was me. The phrase unsettled Anna. She must remember to ask Molly about it when next they talked.
_______
"Honey, I"m home!" Whimsy died a sudden death. The swamp cooler was off and the front room empty.
_______
This summer there were redheads carved with the word WHORE, crucified pink pygmy rattlesnakes, ropes that vanished, and water that killed.
_______
"Not to seem callous or anything, but once you've had the opportunity to really get to know some dead people, you find out they're not half bad."
_______
"What are you doing?" Anna called.
"I'm eating your potato chips," Bethy yelled back, her voice full of malice. "I'm going to eat your whole lunch."
_______
"He hates you. He said you're ugly as dog shit on the side of a new shoe."
_______
"How about hitting and stripping me? Did you tell them that was standard operating procedure as well?"
"I didn't tell 'em anything. They were stupid, but they kinda knew something was hinky. They just wanted it to be okay, so they pretended it was okay and I pretended it was okay, and we left."
June 4, 2018
4 stelle e mezza
Nonostante sia il diciasettesimo libro uscito di questa serie, in realtà questo è il prequel, che ci mostra la prima volta in cui Anna è stata una park ranger, seppure stagionale.
La storia è adrenalinica e in più occasioni Anna è letteralmente a un passo dalla morte. Ho capito abbastanza presto chi fosse il cattivo in una situazione comunque complicata, tanto che a volte mi sono posta il problema se avessi puntato sul colpevole sbagliato.
L'ambientazione in un parco che ho velocemente visitato un paio di anni dopo lo svolgimento di questo libr0 (i casi della vita...) è stata un plus, ma in generale amo questa serie perché ogni volta ci fa visitare un diverso parco americano.
Nonostante sia il diciasettesimo libro uscito di questa serie, in realtà questo è il prequel, che ci mostra la prima volta in cui Anna è stata una park ranger, seppure stagionale.
La storia è adrenalinica e in più occasioni Anna è letteralmente a un passo dalla morte. Ho capito abbastanza presto chi fosse il cattivo in una situazione comunque complicata, tanto che a volte mi sono posta il problema se avessi puntato sul colpevole sbagliato.
L'ambientazione in un parco che ho velocemente visitato un paio di anni dopo lo svolgimento di questo libr0 (i casi della vita...) è stata un plus, ma in generale amo questa serie perché ogni volta ci fa visitare un diverso parco americano.
January 29, 2012
I have kept up with this series over many years now and I look forward to each new entry. This book takes Anna Pigeon's fans back in time to show how she ended up becoming a ranger in the National Park Service after the death of her husband. The exploration of her psychological state--her numbness to life and emotion after the accidental death of her young husband--is sensitive and of great interest to those of us who have seen the stronger character that Pigeon becomes as the series continues. I got through about half the book loving it. But one, well, two, features of the story started to bug me and ended up spoiling my enjoyment. The first is that the book doesn't have very many characters and I knew who the "bad guy" was long, long before it was revealed. Second, not since my last reading of Nancy Drew have I seen a character walk again and again and again into life-threatening circumstances without the slightest suspicion that--AGAIN--someone was going to try to kill her. I became utterly disgusted with this feature of the narrative and could hardly make myself finish the book. Not only does Anna become stronger in the later books, she becomes a LOT smarter too.
Here's a plus: In spring 2010 I visited Lake Powell (where the story is set) for the first time. The area was in the middle of a drought, which continues in 2012. When I saw it, Lake Powell was probably down at least two dozen feet from where it should be as a source of water for the Las Vegas area and a recreational venue. It was at the lowest level since it was created several decades ago. The portrait of Lake Powell and the rest of this man-made recreation area, which were created by drowning a beautiful and ecologically rich landscape of canyons and streams, given by Barr is an excellent critique of the environmental degradation we are willing to allow in the name of progress and our god-given right, as Americans, to amuse ourselves to death.
Here's a plus: In spring 2010 I visited Lake Powell (where the story is set) for the first time. The area was in the middle of a drought, which continues in 2012. When I saw it, Lake Powell was probably down at least two dozen feet from where it should be as a source of water for the Las Vegas area and a recreational venue. It was at the lowest level since it was created several decades ago. The portrait of Lake Powell and the rest of this man-made recreation area, which were created by drowning a beautiful and ecologically rich landscape of canyons and streams, given by Barr is an excellent critique of the environmental degradation we are willing to allow in the name of progress and our god-given right, as Americans, to amuse ourselves to death.
June 18, 2019
This book in many ways is haunting. Its like finding a friend with a life you had always heard hints about and then finally its laid out in detail. This is what Nevada Barr has done with her character Anna Pigeon. You always knew that there was a back story to how and why she got into the National Park Service and it had something to do with her husband, but not the details or why.
In this book she tells you. And it's a particularly gruesome tale of secrets and backstabbing. Anna flees New York after the death of her husband and tries to move forward without really thinking about what she was fleeing from, etc. And she tries to become invisible to all that she is working with.
But that only works for so long. Soon she gets herself involved in a crime at the park where she works and finds herself a victim ... and the only person who knows that she just hasn't run back to New York is herself and she must instigate her own rescue and conduct her own investigation.
Through it all, she begins to open up and realize that who she is and who she can become. But first, who is trying to kill her?
I was a bit put off because Anna comes across as very much passive. There are people around her that I would have avoided in the same incidents but she seems to blissfully put herself in harms way in this story. But I kept reading and I found that while I thought she did some dumb, dangerous things, she was also developing that strength of character that has been so notable in the other books in the series. It's a good story.
In this book she tells you. And it's a particularly gruesome tale of secrets and backstabbing. Anna flees New York after the death of her husband and tries to move forward without really thinking about what she was fleeing from, etc. And she tries to become invisible to all that she is working with.
But that only works for so long. Soon she gets herself involved in a crime at the park where she works and finds herself a victim ... and the only person who knows that she just hasn't run back to New York is herself and she must instigate her own rescue and conduct her own investigation.
Through it all, she begins to open up and realize that who she is and who she can become. But first, who is trying to kill her?
I was a bit put off because Anna comes across as very much passive. There are people around her that I would have avoided in the same incidents but she seems to blissfully put herself in harms way in this story. But I kept reading and I found that while I thought she did some dumb, dangerous things, she was also developing that strength of character that has been so notable in the other books in the series. It's a good story.
November 9, 2011
Anna Pigeon, young and raw, in this series prequel
Almost twenty years after Track of the Cat, the first Anna Pigeon mystery, we have the prequel, the missing link filling in the story of Anna’s transformation from New York Theater type to national park ranger. In The Rope Anna is just a seasonal employee whose job it is to clean boat-dumped human waste off the shores of Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. It’s only a few months following her husband Zach’s death and she’s still shrouded in grief, avoiding human contact as much as possible, when after solitary hike she finds herself coming back to consciousness at the bottom of a deep, dry well--naked, alone and injured with no idea how she got there.
The plot spools out with Anna gradually figuring out what happened and taking action. Like all Anna Pigeon books this one is layered with National Park details, distinctive characters, and hard-earned philosophy. It’s 1995, a time when homosexual National Park employees like Anna’s roommate Jenny, an eventual friend and ally, have to stay fairly close to their closets. My favorite series character, Anna’s insightful, unshakable sister Molly, is on hand as the voice of sophisticated composure, mostly residing in Anna’s brain. This is not my favorite Anna Pigeon mystery, for me nothing can beat Track of the Cat or Blind Descent, but there’s a renewed freshness I’ve been missing from the later books in the series.
Almost twenty years after Track of the Cat, the first Anna Pigeon mystery, we have the prequel, the missing link filling in the story of Anna’s transformation from New York Theater type to national park ranger. In The Rope Anna is just a seasonal employee whose job it is to clean boat-dumped human waste off the shores of Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. It’s only a few months following her husband Zach’s death and she’s still shrouded in grief, avoiding human contact as much as possible, when after solitary hike she finds herself coming back to consciousness at the bottom of a deep, dry well--naked, alone and injured with no idea how she got there.
The plot spools out with Anna gradually figuring out what happened and taking action. Like all Anna Pigeon books this one is layered with National Park details, distinctive characters, and hard-earned philosophy. It’s 1995, a time when homosexual National Park employees like Anna’s roommate Jenny, an eventual friend and ally, have to stay fairly close to their closets. My favorite series character, Anna’s insightful, unshakable sister Molly, is on hand as the voice of sophisticated composure, mostly residing in Anna’s brain. This is not my favorite Anna Pigeon mystery, for me nothing can beat Track of the Cat or Blind Descent, but there’s a renewed freshness I’ve been missing from the later books in the series.
October 13, 2012
I've read most, if not all, of Nevada Barr's series starring Anna Pigeon.I like the fast pace of Barr's novels, and I think she does a great job with suspense. What always keeps me from loving her books is the excrutiating detail she goes into describing the natural surroundings. No matter how much detail she goes into, I'm never able to picture the place. I'd like to skim over it, but am always afraid some small detail may be pivotal to the climax. So I read it and feel bad about myself and I never do catch the all-important detail, if there is one. This keeps it from getting 4 stars. This book cleverly takes place earlier than any of the other stories, before Anna becomes a law enforcement agent for the National Parks. A glimpse into who Anna Pigeon was before.
The story was great, although personally I could've done without the knowledge of how much human fecal matter ends up in lakes. Gross. That's probably what that oozy stuff is that always creeps me out if I accidentally touch bottom. Never again.
There was one passage that took me by surprise. Barr actually wrote something funny. There's usually not a lot of humor in these books but I actually smiled after reading this: "If you even look like you're thinking of tossing that key into the canyon, I will kill you without a qualm." "You don't need a qualm, you've got a rope." Funny, no?
The story was great, although personally I could've done without the knowledge of how much human fecal matter ends up in lakes. Gross. That's probably what that oozy stuff is that always creeps me out if I accidentally touch bottom. Never again.
There was one passage that took me by surprise. Barr actually wrote something funny. There's usually not a lot of humor in these books but I actually smiled after reading this: "If you even look like you're thinking of tossing that key into the canyon, I will kill you without a qualm." "You don't need a qualm, you've got a rope." Funny, no?
June 20, 2017
Take a breath and be prepared to read until your eyes can't stay open any longer. Although not the first in the series, this is the story of how Anna Pigeon became the National Park Service ranger that she did. Thrilling, unnerving, harrowing. Not a roller coaster of events, but a constant barrage of every more dangerous attacks that make me wonder how they could instill a desire to pursue the NPS career. I'm going to grab hold of every book Nevada Barr has written just to hope for this emotional ride again.
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