Anna Pigeon is currently one of my favourite characters in literature and it feels like she's been through a lot since I first met her on the Track of the Cat in Texas nine books ago. In this book she's mostly lucid and sane and it's really comforting to see her coping with the world and not putting herself into too much danger. Though I love the character, the setting is what really makes these books and this time we are in the Glacier National Park which spans the Montana/British Columbia border. Anna is helping out on a project to collect DNA samples from grizzly bears in the park. Until, with reasonable predictability, her camp gets ravaged by a bear, people go missing, people get killed etc. and she has to get into investigator mode. My one criticism of this book would be that it's slow to get off the ground. Nothing much unusual happens for the first fifty pages or so and if I wasn't so hooked on the series and so sure that something interesting was just waiting on the sidelines to happen then I might have put it down and not got back to it for a while. Another couple of more or less random comments: there's a plot twist here that an author wouldn't get away with in a first book and Anna, much as I love her, might seem a bit insipid if you first meet her in this book without knowing about her past. Both of these things mean that I wouldn't recommend jumping into this series at this point without sampling some of the earlier books. When it got going though the plot had pretty much everything that I could have wanted. There's a nice balance between Anna in the park and Anna in the office, the wildlife and the murder, Anna alone and Anna with friends. My favourite episode in the series remains the remarkable Firestorm but I thought this was one of the better books in the series from plot, setting and character viewpoints.
Anna Pigeon, our intrepid park ranger is on a trek through Waterton/Glacier National Park engaged in setting some bear traps to collect hair and scat samples from assorted bears. Technically, she’s off duty and so out-of-uniform when they meet a young man hiking who reeks of malfeasance and in other circumstances, Anna would have had him up against a car demanding his driver’s license and other ID. That night, in a scene that raised my skepticism (having read too many mysteries, I suppose) she and her tent mate are attacked by a huge bear who doesn’t act in the way most bears would (according to the bear expert along on the trip.) Rory, the other volunteer in his own tent hightailed it out of there and is discovered some miles away in rather sad shape, but only after Anna and Joanna report his disappearance does a search reveal the body of a murdered woman who happens to be Rory’s stepmother. Without giving away the plot, I will say only that numerous connections and suspects provide the elements to a puzzle that keeps the rangers, struggling with other responsibilities which include bear scat analysis, bedeviled. Unlike some lesser mysteries the answer does not fall from the sky, but is compiled through careful analysis of evidence.Several reviewers have complained about what they considered to be excessive detail with regard to bear DNA, the bear lure, etc., but for me it’s those kinds of details that I find tantalizing but that’s perhaps since I so enjoy collecting information from what I read as well as entertainment.My suspicion of anthropomorphism that worried me in the beginning was not borne out in the end. Satisfactory.
What do You think about Blood Lure (2002)?
I love Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon mysteries. Anna Pigeon is a great character. She's cynical, distrustful of humanity, politically incorrect, tough, smart, and loves the natural world. "Blind Descent" is still my favorite of her books, but this one comes in a close second. Probably ties it, in fact. Barr does a wonderful job of describing the beauty of West Glacier, and after reading this almost has me liking bears again. And a satisfying murder mystery on top of it all. Everything revealed itself at the same time it did so for Anna; Barr's great at writing mysteries that don't telegraph their punches. Looking forward to reading her next mystery.
—Jason DeGroot
Anna Pigeon is in Glacier Natl Park learning about grizzly tracking. Really makes me want to get out and go hiking which I have not been doing enough of lately. But perhaps not back-country hiking in Glacier. I really don't want to meet a bear up close.This is the first book in the series that I have read. Really enjoy her character. Tough but mostly more sensible than your average detective.I think this is the first fiction that I have ever read that talks about a character needing downtime to recharge, a common issue for us introverts but rarely acknowledged in literature.
—Diane
This is one of the Anna Pigeon series set in U.S. National Parks. Anna is law enforcement in the park system and moves all over the country helping to solve various cases. This allows Barr to have the various national park settings, so a sense of place is important as well as Anna's character, 50ish, widowed and tough. I liked her character. I listened to this as an audiobook, and found it a little tedious. I wondered if reading would have been more enjoyable. I think this would appeal to both s
—Susie
