Blind Descent (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) |
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List Price: $7.99
Our Price: $7.99
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Avon
Average Customer Rating:  
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780380728268
ISBN: 0380728265
Label: Avon
Manufacturer: Avon
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: 1999-04-01
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: 1999-03-09
Studio: Avon
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Clastrophobes Beware...
Comment: In reading this book, I broke my own rule in reading series books. I am usually obsessive about reading them in order. Someone passed this book down to me, and since this author was on my list that I wanted to read, I decided to give this book a try to see if I would like the series. While I'm sure it would have been beneficial to know more about Anna Pigeon, and her sister, it in no way interfered with the book.
I'll admit, I'm about as claustrophobic as Anna, so I really came close to feeling what the author was describing as Anna descended into the cave! I found myself unable to put the book down. While I did for the most part figure out who the bad guys were, even that did not detract from the suspense and climax of the ending. I won't spoil anything, but highly recommend. Besides mystery and suspense, one also gets a look into the world of caves and those who love to explore them.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Anna Pigeon goes much deeper than six foot under in Blind Descent!
Comment: In Blind Descent, law enforcement ranger Anna Pigeon is asked to assist in the underground rescue of a friend, Frieda (from the first novel in this series), injured in a "fall" in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Anna is very uncomfortable underground, but Frieda is asking for her specifically. When she finally gets to Frieda with the rescue team, Frieda, fading in and out of consciousness, hints that her accident wasn't an accident at all. Anna Pigeon's "suspicion hairs" are raised, and the mystery you knew was coming in Blind Descent has appeared.
As you might suspect, things then go from bad to worse, and then to catastrophic.
As in other Nevada Barr novels in this series, you'll learn about issues involving national park and monument management, murder investigations, and, in this case, caving.
Barr takes another opportunity to jab at her favorite targets... idiots:
"Who would shoot __________ [I don't want to give away anything here]? In the Southwest, particularly New Mexico, local militia groups had threatened to shoot BLM rangers on sight. Militia. Bubbas with IQs lower than the caliber of their handguns. Guys who felt cheated because 'varmint hunts,' the senseless competitive slaughter of coyotes that lived so far out on the desert they'd never so much as tasted chicken or lamb, had been interfered with. Men dispossessed because bicycle trails were infringing on traditional shooting ranges, and the government, afraid a few of the Spandex-and-ponytail set would catch a stray bullet, had closed more than one" (p. 191).
This novel starts slowly, and you have to really keep at it in order to keep your interest going. Finally, the plot's engine sputters to life, and the investigation begins!
Here's the list of Anna Pigeon novels, and the order in which they've been published (I've starred the ones I've read to date, to remind me):
1. Track of the Cat (1993)*
2. A Superior Death (1994)
3. Ill Wind (1995)*
4. Firestorm (1996)
5. Endangered Species (1997)*
6. Blind Descent (1998)*
7. Liberty Falling (1999)
8. Deep South (2000)
9. Blood Lure (2001)
10. Hunting Season (2002)*
11. Flashback (2003)
12. High Country (2004)
13. Hard Truth (2005)
14. Winter Study (2008)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nevada Barr at her best
Comment: This is one of my very favorites of the Anna Pigeon series. How much scarier a setting than deep underground!! This is a very interesting, exciting book. I learned a tremendous amount about caves and caving in this one. You really begin to feel a little smothered at times as you read the harrowing adventure deep beneath the earth. Great book. Good read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Mystery, Humor & Imagery, Fascinating Material
Comment: This is my 3rd, and my favorite Nevada Barr novel. Track Of the Cat was very good, Deep South was OK, but Blind Descent was great. Ms. Barr is top notch with her imagery, but I found early on I had to be more of an active reader, keeping up with the technical jargon to stay on top of it. There's lots of caving and climbing equipment and techniques mentioned, and lots of trekking through caves describing each move; if my mind wandered the slightest, I'd lose my mental image and get lost, having to backtrack to refresh myself with just how an ascender worked or where she was in the cave relative to the other person. She makes her subject material fascinating...I found myself googling Lechuguilla Cave, and discovered it's an actual cave just as she describes in the book. I learned a lot, and appreciate being educated while I'm enjoying a book. I love her writing: her humor, her wonderful similes and metaphors, the unpredictability of her plot. In the book the protaganist Anna is hiding in a cave, slips out of her hole and manages to grab a supply pack & return to her hiding place unseen. Ms Barr's description: "Scuttling backward with her prize, like an alligator with a Pekinese, Anna vanished into the trough." Danger sprinked with humor, I love it! Describing Anna's sighting of a rope she desperately needs to escape: "Daring one flick of her lamp, she sighted the ascension rope on the far side of the pit. Between the looming crusted tables, a red snakey tongue licked dead white stone". Tension loaded with vivid imagery; Ms. Barr does it so well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Deep Subject
Comment: Nevada Barr's BLIND DESCENT, the 6th Anna Pigeon mystery is not for the claustrophobic. New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns is one of the most beautiful and mysterious of the National Park System. I'm not a spelunker, but have managed to find myself in several along with my camera. Tight spaces don't particularly bother me, but I've watched people freeze even in a mock up of a cave in a natural history museum. If you're one of those ease back in your best chair and let Nevada's vivid prose give you a vicarious experience. BLIND DESCENT is well worth the trip and her masterful plotting, red herrings, and convoluted paths to the exciting conclusion might cure your fear of closed places.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.
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