The Rope by Nevada Barr

The Rope

By Nevada Barr

Nevada Barr is one of those authors that I look forward to a new book from and, when I get one, I know that I will be up late into the night until I have finished the story. 

The main character and detective in this series is Anna Pigeon, a Native American park ranger in the U.S. National Park Service.  Anna has been in some life threatening situations and has the mental scars to prove it.  She is tough and resourceful.  Each book has taken us to a new national park as Anna has moved around in her work.  Her sister, Molly, is a psychologist and has been one of the mainstays in the stories.

Of course, as with any long running series, 17 and counting, some of the books haven’t been as strong as others but one of my coworkers, another Anna Pigeon fan, agreed that this book is a return to the gritty story telling of the Anna Pigeon mysteries.

I found it an interesting and effective choice that the book does not begin from Anna’s frame of reference, but rather from the National Park Service personnel who she was working with so that our first glimpse of her is through their recollections.  When we switch to Anna’s perspective, the view darkens considerably.

In this book, we are taken back to Anna’s first foray into park service, before she was a ranger.  At this point, Anna has lost her husband, Zach, fairly recently and is looking for a change to help escape her pain.  She goes out west to be a seasonal employee in the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area.  Clearly in mourning, her fellow employees are not surprised that Anna doesn’t stick around.  Most of her personal property is gone so they assume she went back to New York City and the theater life.  No one suspects that she is still in the state, let alone still in the park. 

The character of Anna Pigeon has always been marked by her resilience in enduring pain. This is a dark tale of our heroine being tested and forged in fire.  At the end, she gives voice to her decision to go into law enforcement, saying, “Women need to come to think of themselves not as victims but as dangerous.”  

A strong female character in the making, I highly recommend this book and the others in the series.