Helpful Score: 13
One of her best -- you actually feel trapped in the caverns!
Helpful Score: 3
Anna Pigeon's willingness to come to the aid of an injured friend trapped in the bowels of Carlsbad Caverns (the part off-limits to the general public) forces her to wrestle with her own claustrophobia-induced demons. In doing so, she places herself in greater physical peril than in most of the earlier books ... or perhaps it just seemed that way to this claustrophobic reader.
Anna remains one of the more interesting and three-dimensional amateur sleuths around today, and while the supporting cast is not necessarily so well-defined (and there are moments when readers who hadn't read the earlier books might have to struggle a little too much to understand relationships), there is a level of elegance to the writing which is not often found in works that have no pretensions to high literature.
This is a well-written novel with an engaging protagonist and a clever plot. Light reading doesn't get much better.
Anna remains one of the more interesting and three-dimensional amateur sleuths around today, and while the supporting cast is not necessarily so well-defined (and there are moments when readers who hadn't read the earlier books might have to struggle a little too much to understand relationships), there is a level of elegance to the writing which is not often found in works that have no pretensions to high literature.
This is a well-written novel with an engaging protagonist and a clever plot. Light reading doesn't get much better.
Helpful Score: 2
I generally like the Anna Pigeon stories, although sometimes they get a bit tedious. This one is my favorite of the four or five I've read in the series. I am fascinated by caves, yet have a healthy near-claustrophic fear of them. So does Anna Pigeon.
When she joins a rescue team to descend into the almost unexplored deep parts of Carlsbad Caverns, all sorts of interesting things transpire. The writing is excellent--I could actually feel the emotions (fear, primarily) as the story went on. This story even affected my dreams for a time!
I recommend it. The mystery elements are good, but the actual feeling of being way down deep in the bowels of the earth in tiny, tight places as well as in huge empty underground rooms is the main reason to read this amazing story.
When she joins a rescue team to descend into the almost unexplored deep parts of Carlsbad Caverns, all sorts of interesting things transpire. The writing is excellent--I could actually feel the emotions (fear, primarily) as the story went on. This story even affected my dreams for a time!
I recommend it. The mystery elements are good, but the actual feeling of being way down deep in the bowels of the earth in tiny, tight places as well as in huge empty underground rooms is the main reason to read this amazing story.
Helpful Score: 2
I'm reading all of Barr's Anna Pigeon mysteries in sequence, and while I like all of them, this one is my least favorite so far, partly for personal reasons. The personal part is that I am claustrophobic, and the whole idea of caving in "wormholes" gives me the willies. As a matter of fact, I just had to put the book down a couple of times because I was so uncomfortable. Less personal, the book has a lot of spelunking and climbing technical lore in it that I just didn't follow. Ultimately, the plot is OK and the characterizations good, so if you don't share my personal phobias, plunge in.
Helpful Score: 1
Nice Barr book. Easy read, suspensful.
Helpful Score: 1
I generally like the Anna Pigeon stories, although sometimes they get a bit tedious. This one is my favorite of the four or five I've read in the series. I am fascinated by caves, yet have a healthy near-claustrophic fear of them. So does Anna Pigeon.
When she joins a rescue team to descend into the almost unexplored deep parts of Carlsbad Caverns, all sorts of interesting things transpire. The writing is excellent--I could actually feel the emotions (fear, primarily) as the story went on. This story even affected my dreams for a time!
I recommend it. The mystery elements are good, but the actual feeling of being way down deep in the bowels of the earth in tiny, tight places as well as in huge empty underground rooms is the main reason to read this amazing story.
When she joins a rescue team to descend into the almost unexplored deep parts of Carlsbad Caverns, all sorts of interesting things transpire. The writing is excellent--I could actually feel the emotions (fear, primarily) as the story went on. This story even affected my dreams for a time!
I recommend it. The mystery elements are good, but the actual feeling of being way down deep in the bowels of the earth in tiny, tight places as well as in huge empty underground rooms is the main reason to read this amazing story.
Helpful Score: 1
I am really enjoying this series. I really like the mysteries and I enjoy reading about all the national parks where they are set.
Helpful Score: 1
Good thrill, quick read
Anything I've read by Nevada Barr has been great! Her characters are 'real'...flaws and all.
Amazon.com
Feisty, resourceful forest ranger Anna Pigeon faced everything from raging fires to deep-water dives with cool aplomb in her first five adventures. Very early in Blind Descent her courage is put to an even greater test when she learns that a woman seriously injured while exploring a cave next door to New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns is a friend who has requested Pigeon's help in getting her out. "A chilling image filled Anna's mind: herself crouched and whimpering, fear pouring like poison through her limbs, shutting down her brain as the cave closed in around her." Pushing aside her fears, Pigeon takes the plunge, leading readers through a truly harrowing series of tight squeezes. Nevada Barr is so good at involving us in Anna's terror that when she finally resurfaces, we share her "unadulterated joy. Even the dirt smelled alive... When she saw her first stars, she croaked out her delight from tired lungs." Above ground, Anna quickly gets involved in two possibly linked murders and becomes a rifleman's target. As we share the progress of her investigation, a sneaky suspicion starts to grow of possible suspects within the small community of spelunkers and National Park Service bureaucrats. Barr couldn't possibly ask Anna to go back underground again, could she? When it happens, of course, it seems inevitable--and just as frightening as the first time
Feisty, resourceful forest ranger Anna Pigeon faced everything from raging fires to deep-water dives with cool aplomb in her first five adventures. Very early in Blind Descent her courage is put to an even greater test when she learns that a woman seriously injured while exploring a cave next door to New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns is a friend who has requested Pigeon's help in getting her out. "A chilling image filled Anna's mind: herself crouched and whimpering, fear pouring like poison through her limbs, shutting down her brain as the cave closed in around her." Pushing aside her fears, Pigeon takes the plunge, leading readers through a truly harrowing series of tight squeezes. Nevada Barr is so good at involving us in Anna's terror that when she finally resurfaces, we share her "unadulterated joy. Even the dirt smelled alive... When she saw her first stars, she croaked out her delight from tired lungs." Above ground, Anna quickly gets involved in two possibly linked murders and becomes a rifleman's target. As we share the progress of her investigation, a sneaky suspicion starts to grow of possible suspects within the small community of spelunkers and National Park Service bureaucrats. Barr couldn't possibly ask Anna to go back underground again, could she? When it happens, of course, it seems inevitable--and just as frightening as the first time
Anna Pigeon must descend into a 300 mile long cave system, to help a fellow ranger who's been injured.
Overcoming her claustrophobia, she discovers evidence that that there is much more to fear than the cave.
Overcoming her claustrophobia, she discovers evidence that that there is much more to fear than the cave.
I love Anna Pigeon- the main character in the series. Nevada Barr, the author, is truly a wonderful writer. Every book in the series takes place in a different national Park in the United States. So much to learn!
For anyone who has ever done, thought of, or wondered about 'caving' (the art of descending to the depths of the likes of the Carlsbad Caverns), this book is a must. An Anna Pigeon Mystery at its best!
I picked up this book while spending a weekend at my parent's cabin. I was just bored, I had never heard of this author at all. But I could not put the book down. I would recommend it to anyone that has a love of suspense!!!
The best! The story, plot and characters are vintage Nevada Barr. "On the edge of your seat", nail bitig suspense in parts. How does she keep on besting herself?
A would be killer is drawing Anna Pigeon deep into the darkness and closer to hell than she's ever gone before.
Anna Pigeon,the intrepid National Park Service ranger investagates a mon-
ster man-eating cave in NM's Carlsbab Caverns,When a fellow ranger is injured in a caving accident,Anna chokes back the willies of claustrophobia
and joins the recue team.Burrowing 800ft below ground,she negotiates airless tunnels,gaping pits,vaulting caverns and silently flowing rivers,
each hazard w/a daunting name like Razor Blade Run or the Wormhole.At the end of the dangerous descent,she reaches her friend and hears her say
"It wasn't an accident".
ster man-eating cave in NM's Carlsbab Caverns,When a fellow ranger is injured in a caving accident,Anna chokes back the willies of claustrophobia
and joins the recue team.Burrowing 800ft below ground,she negotiates airless tunnels,gaping pits,vaulting caverns and silently flowing rivers,
each hazard w/a daunting name like Razor Blade Run or the Wormhole.At the end of the dangerous descent,she reaches her friend and hears her say
"It wasn't an accident".
Boring. On and on with no clear plot
Love all her books tough park ranger
I've read and enjoyed four or five of Barr's novels. This one didn't work as well for me as the others. Structurally, the novel is very peculiar and kind of unbalanced: the mystery per se doesn't really get started until the second half of the book. The first half is more of a harrowing adventure story, and it was never clear to me to what extent this was factually based (corresponding to a real place) and to what extent largely made up. Because the mystery got going so late, it was not as suspenseful or thrilling as if it were integrated with the action part of the story.
Enjoyable book - I had forgotten how good Nevada Barr books are.
Anna Pigeon, the intredpid National Park Service ranger in Nevada Barr's superb wilderness mysteries, ahs had some perilous experienced in the five novels that preceded "Blind Descent", but none compares with this thrilling subterranean adventure in the underground caverns of Lechuguilla, a "monster man-eatting cave" in New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns. When a fellow ranger is injured in a caving accident, Anna chokes back the willies of claustrophobia and joins the rescue team. Burrowing 800 feet below ground, she negotiates airless tunnels, gaping pits, vaulting caverns, and silently flowing fivers, each hazard with a daunting name like Razor Blade Run or the Wormhole. At the end of the dangerous descent, she reaches her friend and hears her say, "It wasn't and accident."
Barr's descriptions of this Stygian underworld-so beautiful, so mysterious and so treacherous-have a stunning visceral quality, largely because of her heroine's affinity with the natural world. Strong, independent and proud of it, Anna is less appreciative of nature's higher orders. ('If she had a tail,' she says of her edgy encounter with another caver, 'it would have been lashing.') Her abrasiveness may blind anna to the subtler signals of human behavior, but alone in the darkness, she can see clear to the heart of the matter.
Barr's descriptions of this Stygian underworld-so beautiful, so mysterious and so treacherous-have a stunning visceral quality, largely because of her heroine's affinity with the natural world. Strong, independent and proud of it, Anna is less appreciative of nature's higher orders. ('If she had a tail,' she says of her edgy encounter with another caver, 'it would have been lashing.') Her abrasiveness may blind anna to the subtler signals of human behavior, but alone in the darkness, she can see clear to the heart of the matter.
I like her books, enjoy reading about the national parks.
Took halfway thru book to get interested. If into caves might be interesting. Learned a lot about caving.
Anna Pigeon, park ranger is now is the New Mexico's Carlsbad Cavern going 800 ft. below ground to rescue a trapped fellow ranger. When she reaches her, she hears her friend say, "It was not an accident".
Interesting. a page-turner.
When a fellow ranger is injured in a caving accident, Anna Pegeon chokes back the willies of claustrophobia and joins the rescue team. At the end of a dangerous descent, she reaches her friend to hear "It wasn't an accident".
book 6 in series
