Nevada Barr Books

 

Naked Came the Phoenix by an all-star lineup of 13 women mystery authors
by Marcia Talley (Editor), Nevada Barr, J.D. Robb, Nancy Pickard, Lisa Scottoline, Perri O'Shaughnessy, J.A. Jance, Faye Kellerman, Mary Jane Clark, Anne Perry, Diana Gabaldon, Val McDermid, Laurie R. King

The promise of discretion and pampering-and a long-overdue reconciliation with her mother-draws Caroline Blessing, the young wife of a newly-elected Congressman, to the fancy Phoenix Spa. But after her first night in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, Caroline wakes to find the rich and famous guests in turmoil and under suspicion: the spa's flamboyant and ambitious owner has been murdered. As the secrets come out-and the body count rises, can Caroline keep herself from becoming the next victim?
In the tradition of such collaborative classics as Naken Came the Manatee and The Floating Admiral, each chapter in this serial novel is written by one of today's most talented mystery novelists.

About the Authors
Nevada Barr's ninth and latest in her Anna Pigeon series is Blood Lure, and she is now writing the tenth. She is published worldwide and has won the Agatha and the Anthony Awards and the Grand Prix des Romans d'Aventures. J.D. Robb is the New York Times bestselling author of the futuristic romantic suspense series featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas. Her most recent titles include Betrayal in Death and Judgement in Death. Nancy Pickard is the author of the popular Jenny Cain mystery series and of a new series starring true crime writer Marie Lightfoot. Her books include Ring of Truth and The Whole Truth. Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times bestselling author of legal thrillers, most recently The Vendetta Defense and Moment of Truth. She has won the Edgar and is published in over twenty countries. J.A. Jance writes two police procedural series: 12 books featuring Detective J.P. Beaumont, and 9 with Sheriff Joanna Brady. She also has two Arizona-based thrillers: Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Bees. Faye Kellerman is the New York Times bestselling author of the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus mystery series. She has also written a historical novel, The Quality of Mercy and Moon Music, a thriller. Her most recent novel is The Forgotten. Mary Jane Clark is a producer and writer at CBS News, and the author of three media thrillers including Let Me Whisper in Your Ear, two of which were national bestsellers. Her fourth, Close to You, is due to be published in 2001. Marcia Talley is the author of Unbreathed Memories and the award-winning Sing it to Her Bones. Her third Hannah Ives mystery, Occasion of Revenge is due to be published in 2001. She is also the editor of Naked Came the Phoenix. Anne Perry, author of the acclaimed Victorian series starring William Monk and Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, has written over thirty novels, including The One Thing More. Her many awards include the Herodotus for Lifetime Achievement and the Edgar. Diana Gabaldon's The Fiery Cross, fifth in the Outlander series, is due to be published late this year. She is also working on a contemporary mystery. Val McDermid has published 15 novels and one work of non-fiction, and has won the Gold Dagger and the Grand Prix des Romans d'Aventures. Her most recent novel is A Place of Execution. Laurie R. King writes two crime fiction series as well as stand-alone novels, most recently Folly. She has won the Edgar, the Creasey, and the Nero Wolfe awards and been nominated for many others. She is published in seventeen languages.


Liberty Falling : An Anna Pigeon Mystery by Nevada Barr

Amazon.com
Imagine Nevada Barr's delight in discovering that there is actually a national park right smack in the middle of New York City--Gateways Park, which encompasses Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. She could continue her splendid series about park ranger Anna Pigeon and still do some serious shopping at Bendel's and Berghdorf's, the kind of stores you don't find in the New Mexico cave setting of Blind Descent (her last adventure). The ploy works: Barr is probably the only mystery writer who could see a natural environment under New York's slick and sleazy skin.
Anna is in Manhattan to look after her sister Molly, seriously ill with pneumonia and a kidney infection. Pigeon moves in with a ranger friend who has a place on Ellis Island. There's not much natural wildlife unless you count her feathered namesakes, but she still manages to find a lot to contemplate--especially the suspicious suicide of a teenage girl who leaps from Liberty's ledge, followed not long after by the security guard who tried to stop her. But Anna's snooping puts her own life in jeopardy. She survives several attacks and a near drowning--events as frightening as any of the fires, floods, and hurricanes from her past adventures. Barr neatly ties up her plot--ending with a brilliant chase scene across the waters from Manhattan to Liberty Island. What next for Anna? Is there a national park in Las Vegas?
Book Description
There is peril beneath the watchful eyes of the Lady...
When Anna Pigeon left New York City after her husband was killed, she hoped it would be forever. But now her sister Molly is clinging to life in an uptown hospital ICU, so Anna has reluctantly returned. Rooming with a friend and fellow park ranger in close quarters on Liberty Island---the small strip of land that is home to Lady Liberty---Anna spends her free time exploring the grand monument and the crumbling, overgrown, and eerie ruins in the unrestored sections of nearby Ellis Island. But the peace she seeks here is shattered when she finds herself among a crowd gathered at the Lady's base, staring at the broken body of a teenager who fell---or was pushed---to her death.

The reason behind the youthful girl's fatal plunge is not the only mystery alive on these historic sites---nor will hers be the only death. Hidden in a dangerous labyrinth of stone, glass, and steel are secrets Anna Pigeon is now compelled to uncover...and an insidious threat to herself and to others that could wreak havoc on a nation's proudest day. There is peril beneath the watchful eyes of the Lady...

 

Blind Descent : An Anna Pigeon Mystery by Nevada Barr

Amazon.com
Nevada Barr's sixth mystery featuring protagonist Anna Pigeon descends into a cave in the midst of Carlsbad Caverns to seek out the best place for a murder. Pigeon's mental and detective skills are tested by her claustrophobia as she rappels into a rescue effort for an injured colleague. With every tortuous step Pigeon takes into the deep, the tension increases as it becomes clear that more is at stake than just a rescue effort. Classically, there is the shortest of lists of possible suspects: as Anna herself realizes, it's unlikely that the convenient tramp could find his or her way hundreds of feet underground. However, Barr manages the restraints of the convention beautifully, and the suspense remains taut until the perpetrator is revealed.
Although similar to Tony Hillerman in her appreciation and descriptions of spectacular natural resources and familiarity with the National Park Service, Barr is the stronger writer and manipulates her plot more effectively. Where Hillerman relies on discussing Native American techniques of observing and participating in the natural world to add character to his books, Barr is firmly in the camp of REI and techniques that aid the contemporary struggle to explore, admire, and protect the natural beauty central to her mystery. Minor characters are often one-dimensional, but more important players have more to them than an obvious veneer of good or evil. Anna herself is plagued by personal demons of loneliness, a recurring struggle with alcohol, and a deep fondness for cats and the parks in which she works. These elements as well as the mystery itself keep Blind Descent from being simplistic and make for a good and entertaining read.
Book Description
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 in Nevada Barr's superb wilderness mysteries, has had some perilous experiences 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-eating 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 tunnells, gaping pits, vaulting caverns and silently flowing rivers, 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 an accident.' A would-be killer is drawing Anna Pigeon deep into the darkness-and closer to hell than she's ever gone before.
Summary
Summoned to rescue a close friend, park ranger Anna Pigeon must fight back her claustrophobia and join her crew in a death-black labyrinth of subterranean canyons and narrow crawl spaces in New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns. But a whispered warning and a crushed corpse on the cavern floor make Anna realize there is a murderer among them, and she must hunt a killer in this underground world. Featured title and sleuth bio at avonbooks.com/twilight.


A Superior Death by Nevada Barr

When the wreck of a cargo ship is discovered at the bottom of Lake Superior seventy years after its sinking, a fresh corpse is found on board dressed in 1920s clothing, bringing U.S. park ranger Anna Pigeon north from Texas to investigate.


Ill Wind by Nevada Barr

It is whispered that the Old Ones still hauntMesa Verde-the restless spirits of the Anasazi, whocarved their homes in the mountain's face eightcenturies ago ... and then disappeared from the Earth. Newly assigned national parks rangerAnna Pigeon seeks solace from her own personaldemons in the ancient cave dwellings of a vanished NativeAmerican civilization. But an inexplicable illness affectingvisitors to the popular Colorado landmark has dragged herfrom her reverie -- as have two mysterious tragedies: thedeath of a child ... and the murder of a friend. And now shemust find the very human source of the evil wind that isblowing through the ruins. For it threatens more innocentlives, Mother Nature ... and Anna herself.
Summary
Avoiding her past by immersing herself in the study of ancient Native American cave dwellings, newly assigned national parks ranger Anna Pigeon investigates a strange illness that is claiming the lives of tourists.

 

Firestorm by Nevada Barr

Amazon.com
A raging fire in a national park seems an unlikely setting for a murder, but that's exactly the circumstances that crime-fighting park ranger and medic Anna Pigeon confronts in this mystery thriller. A suspicious fire breaks loose in Northern California's Lassen Volcanic Park and Pigeon assists in battling the blaze and treating the wounds of other fire fighters. As if that's not enough, Pigeon finds herself without food and water trapped with a group of fire fighters, one of whom is a murderer. She tries to figure out who the culprit is before he, or the weather, strikes again.
Summary
Exhausted by efforts to stop a wildfire that has already devoured 17,000 acres in California, ranger Anna Pigeon takes refuge when the fire crosses her path and emerges with nine other people, only to discover a murdered body.

 

 

Deep South by Nevada Barr

Amazon.com
After her urban adventures on New York's Ellis Island in Liberty Falling, park ranger Anna Pigeon has finally "heeded the ticking of her bureaucratic clock" and signed on for a promotion in the boonies: district ranger on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Anna's mental images of Mississippi come from black-and-white stock photos from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, so it's not surprising that she finds it beautiful but strange, its residents caught in a teased-hair, fried-food time warp. But she's got more than an unhealthy diet to worry about--as the first female district ranger on the Trace, she immediately encounters more than a few good ol' boys and local miscreants who resent her authority, especially after a 17-year-old beauty is murdered on a booze-soaked prom night near the Trace, her head covered with a KKK-style sheet.
There are plenty of reasons her friends and family might have wanted Danielle Posey dead, ranging from her $40,000 insurance policy to jealousy to flat-out insanity. Anna wonders whether the sheet's a red herring, but she can't dismiss it entirely. Though the local culture's no longer built around segregation, racism still exists at a deep level that Anna finds unsettling. Both Danielle Posey and the prime suspect--her boyfriend--are white, but Danielle had secrets her friends won't reveal. Still, no one else appears to be in danger, until a prankster--or could it be a murderer?--sets an alligator loose in Anna's garage (nearly killing her faithful black Lab, Taco) and a local preacher commits suicide.

With the help of the handsome local sheriff, Paul Davidson, Anna pulls together clues from local history, Civil War reenactors, and the Mississippi mud and kudzu. Anna Pigeon's one tough bird--she survives not only a little alligator wrestling but also a brutal attack that leads her to the truth of what happened to Danielle Posey and why. What's most fascinating is how much of her famous emotional shield she lets slip in the process.

Book Description
Park Ranger Anna Pigeon stumbles upon a gruesome murder with frightening racial overtones in the latest installment of the bestselling series.

"What lifts the Anna Pigeon novels far above most of the other contemporary amateur sleuth mysteries is Barr's exquisite writing--it swoops, it soars, sails then catches you unawares beneath the heart and takes your breath away," proclaimed the Cleveland Plain Dealer of last year's Liberty Falling. In Deep South, Nevada Barr takes our breath away once again as her heroine travels cross-country to Mississippi, only to encounter terrible secrets in the heart of the south.

The handwritten sign on the tree said it all: REPENT. For Anna Pigeon, this should have been reason enough to turn back for her beloved Mesa Verde. Instead she heads for the Natchez Trace Parkway and the promotion that awaits her. Almost immediately, she finds herself in the midst of controversy: as the new district ranger, she faces resentment so extreme her ability to do her job may be compromised, and her life may very well be in danger. But all thoughts of personal safety are set aside with the discovery of a young girl's body in a country cemetery, a sheet around her head, a noose around her neck.

The kudzu is thick and green, the woods dark and full of secrets. And the ghosts of violence hover as Anna struggles for answers to questions that, perhaps, should never be asked. Deep South proves that, "like the parks and monuments she writes of, Nevada Barr should be declared a national treasure" (The Bloomsbury Review).


Blood Lure by Nevada Barr

Amazon.com
Park ranger Anna Pigeon, the fortyish heroine of Barr's popular series, is back, tracking grizzlies through the unforgiving landscape of Glacier National Park as part of a scientific investigation that's outlined with more detail than anyone who's not totally fascinated by these awesome animals will care about. In fact, the description of what actually goes into the lures set to attract the bears so they can be tagged and counted is guaranteed to rumble the strongest stomach--but that's just the back story in this newest Pigeon adventure. When the mutilated body of the stepmother of one of the bear trackers turns up in a remote corner of the park, and it becomes clear that she met death at the hands of a human rather than the claws of a grizzly, Anna goes on the hunt for the killer.
Barr's strength is in depicting the natural surroundings in which her heroine finds inspiration, solace, and comfort, and she limns the gorgeous landscape of Glacier with consummate skill. But her plotting leaves much to be desired, and when she finally reveals the killer's identity, motivation, and especially his accomplice, the discriminating reader may be tempted to throw this book at the nearest teddy bear. The trick ending is too much to stomach, unless you're a grizzly who'll eat (almost) anything. Up to that point, however, there's much to appeal to Barr's fans: another beautifully drawn portrait of a piece of America's vanishing wilderness and a few hours in the company of an appealingly cranky heroine whose appreciation of it knows no bounds.

Book Description
The laws of nature take a terrifyingly murderous turn in this spellbinding addition to the New York Times bestselling series featuring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon.

In Blood Lure, Anna returns to the West, where she is sent on a training assignment to study the grizzly bears in Waterton/Glacier National Peace Park, straddling the border between Montana and Canada. But back in her beloved mountains, where the air is pure and cool, Anna fails to find the spiritual renewal she expected. Instead, nature seems to have become twisted, carrying a malevolence almost human in its focus.

Along with bear researcher Joan Rand and a volatile and unpredictable teenaged boy, Anna hikes the backcountry, seeking signs of the bears. On their second night out, the tables are turned: one of the beasts comes looking for her. Daybreak finds the boy missing and a camper dead, her neck snapped by a single blow, the flesh of her face cut away with a knife. Feeling betrayed by both nature and humanity, Anna must find the beast stalking the trails-leading her readers deep into a gripping wilderness life-or-death mystery.

 

Endangered Species : An Anna Pigeon Mystery by Nevada Barr

Amazon.com
In Endangered Species, Nevada Barr's latest mystery featuring park ranger Anna Pigeon, the landscape changes from the stern beauty of Anna's beloved Southwest to Georgia's Cumberland Island National Seashore. Here, in an alien world of loggerhead turtles and wild ponies, Anna finds herself embroiled in mystery when a drug- interdiction airplane crashes, the result of espionage. Though the territory may be unfamiliar to her, Anna never loses her head as she navigates a sure path through eccentric islanders, fellow rangers, and many unexpected twists and turns to discover the heart of the riddle.
Book Description
In the midst of a dangerously dry season, national park ranger Anna Pigeon has been posted to Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast for a monotonous, twenty-one day fire watch. But her boredom is short-lived, for this remote and marshy place is breeding ground for more than just the imperiled Loggerhead turtle; it also spawns eccentricity and secrets, greed, suspicion. . .and murder.

A small plane crashes into the palmetto thickets nearby. Anna and her crew arrive in time to control the blaze, but too late to save pilot and his passenger, Cumberland's sole law enforcement ranger. When the cause of the "accident" is determined to be sabotage, Anna becomes entangled in an investigation that threatens to upset the very delicate balance of this fragile ecological preserve. For she is precariously close to exposing dark, clandestine crimes both old and new that someone has worked very diligently to conceal. . .and which make Anna Pigeon the most endangered creature on the island.
Summary
In a dangerous dry season, park ranger Anna Pigeon is posted to Georgia's Cumberland Island on 21-day fire detail. When a plane crashes nearby, Anna and her crew arrive in time to put out the flames, but too late to save the pilot and his passenger, Cumberland's only full-time law enforcement ranger. And when the cause of the "accident" is proven to be sabotage, Anna embarks upon an investigation that threatens to expose dark, clandestine crimes both old and new, making Anna suddenly the most endangered creature on the island.

 

 

Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr

The memory of violence and loss droveAnna Pigeon from the city to seek peace in theSouthwestern wilderness. Now a ranger inAmerica's national parks, Anna is at one withnature and its serene, unspoiled majesty. But thebrutal death of a fellow ranger in the remote WestTexas backcountry -- presumably by mountain lionattack-looks suspiciously like murder to Anna.And her unauthorized investigation into thetragedy is placing her squarely in harm's way. Fora trail with few leads winds through dangerousterritory -- where Anna must confront the dark sideof the desert ... and the human heart.
Summary
While investigating the violent death of a fellow park ranger in the remote West Texas backcountry, presumably killed by a mountain lion attack, Anna Pigeon discovers that the murder may instead be of the two-legged variety.

 

Nevada Barr Presents Malice Domestic 10 : An Anthology of Original Traditional Mystery Stories (Malice Domestic, 10)
by Nevada Barr (Editor)

Clue into a world of murder and mayhem from the ingenious minds of today's most fiendishly clever mystery writers:
K.K. Beck, Simon Brett, Susan Dunlap, Carolyn Hart, Melodie Johnson Howe, M.D. Lake, Martha C. Lawrence, Peter Lovesey, Margaret Maron, Sujata Massey, Katherine Hall Page, Anne Perry, Nancy Pickard and Elizabeth Daniels Squire
Witness the crimes and uncover the evidence of murder at its most unusual...and diabolical
A screenwriter scorned plots a chilling revenge suitable for celluloid
A four-footed sleuth takes on the perplexing case of the missing Christmas goose
A widow who narrowly escapes death has a surprise in store for her would-be slayer
A cheating quartet of married lovers plans the perfect crime
And More!

_____________________

 

About the Author
Award-winning novelist Nevada Barr is the author of six previous Anna Pigeon mysteries including Firestorm, Ill Wind, A Superior Death, and Track of the Cat. She has worked as a park ranger at Isle Royale National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, and Natchez Trace Parkway, and lives in Mississippi.

 


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