Liberty Falling

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? --Dick Adler From Publishers Weekly Tenacious park ranger Anna Pigeon leaves the country wilderness for the wilds of New York City, where her sister Molly is hospitalized, in this seventh installment of Barr's popular series (Blind Descent, etc.). Although Anna is on leave, she gets involved in the investigation of two murders. An unidentified child falls to her death from the Statue of Liberty. The main suspect dies. Anna is attacked. An actress is fatally bludgeoned on Ellis Island. Anna's conviction that these events are connected leads to a cross-country search for a right-wing fanatic. As expected with Barr, the narrative teems with memorable characters-among them Charlie DeLeo, the caretaker of the Statue of Liberty's torch, and Anna's former lover, FBI Agent Frederick Stanton, now smitten with Molly. Though Barr ties up the many subplots in an action-packed finale, the mystery is slow to develop and there's little doubt that Molly will recover. Barr's atmospherics remain potent, however. Her evocation of the isolated, exotic nature of the two famous tourist attractions is a particular treat, bringing home how nature is inexorably reclaiming buildings and records a stone's throw from bustling Manhattan. Mystery Guild main selection; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal YA-With her New Yorker sister critically ill, park ranger Anna Pigeon is staying with a fellow U.S. Park Service employee on Liberty Island and commuting back and forth to the hospital. When Anna becomes involved with two suspicious suicides at the Statue of Liberty, her own life becomes endangered. While the atmosphere of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty is vividly created, the story never quite jells. It bogs down in dealing with Anna's sister's illness and her feelings for her ex-boyfriend, now her sister's fiance. Also, this book does not have the intensity of the previous titles in the series, which had wilderness settings. There does not seem to be much here to attract YAs. John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Having tackled New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns in Blind Descent (LJ 3/15/98), National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon now confronts the wilds of New York City. In between hospital visits to her critically ill older sister, Anna flees crowded Manhattan for Liberty Island, where she's staying with a fellow ranger, and Ellis Island. However, several mysterious incidentsAthe fatal fall of a teenager from the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the apparent suicide of a policeman accused of pushing the 14-year-old girl, a series of physical attacks on AnnaAcompels her to find answers. On a personal level, Anna also has to control her jealousy as she realizes that her former boyfriend is in love with her sister. Barr, a former park ranger, combines a plausible, intriguing plot with a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Liberty and Ellis Islands that few tourists see. One minus: Barr's tendancy to overdescribe sometimes slows the action down. Still, this will be in demand. -AWilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews What does National Park Service Ranger Anna Pigeon do on her own time? She goes to New York, of coursebedding down on Liberty Island, the speck of land the Statue of Liberty shares with thousands of tourists each day and has pretty much to herself each night. Staying with fellow ranger Patsy Silva in order to be close to her psychiatrist sister Molly, hospitalized at Columbia Presbyterian with pneumonia, a kidney infection, and more, Anna thinks her biggest headaches will be Molly's grave illness and Anna's need to deal somehow with FBI agent Frederick Stanton, the ex-boyfriend who deserted her for Molly. But darker trouble is already brewing. An unidentified 14-year-old girl who jumped to her death from the parapet around the statue's base has sent James Patchett, the guard who was pursuing her, into deep depression. Why was the girl more willing to die than to have Patch, who thought she was a pickpocket, catch her? Why has her backpack disappeared? And why hasn't anyone claimed her body? As Molly Pigeon shuttles in and out of Intensive Care, pausing only long enough to encourage Anna's romance with surgeon David Madison, more casualties pile up on Liberty Island, including two who leave behind cryptic messages that Anna's convinced would tie half a dozen mysterious portents togetherif only she were wise enough to decipher them. Though Barr works her customary magic with the eerily deserted nightscapes of Liberty Island, they're just not as arresting as the Lechugilla caves (Blind Descent, 1998) or the wild scenes of any of earlier six adventures. Score a mere double this time for the Park Service's answer to Mark McGwire. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "...Liberty Falling is [Nevada Barr's] best novel to date. And considering her small but powerful oeuvre [Blind Descent, Firestorm, Track of the Cat and three other top notch efforts], that says a lot. Like the parks and monuments she writes of, Nevada Barr should be declared a national treasure." -- The Bloomsbury Review, May/June 1999 "...What lifts the Anna Pigeon novels far above most of the other contemporary amateur sleuth mysteries is Barr's exquisite writing - it swoops, soars, sails, then catches you unawares beneath the heart and takes your breath away. Barr gives the lie to literary snobs who dismiss genre fiction as fluff and pulp." -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/25/99 Nevada Barr was most recently a ranger on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. Read more