So why do I read Nevada Barr? She writes these little whodunit murder mysteries set in National Parks that are mostly fun little reads. As a former NPS employee, she captures the park service culture very well, which adds to the amusement, because that is one of the cultures I live in. She is also famous for thinly veiling some of her characters, so when she writes about a park you've worked in, it is always fun to try to guess who some of the characters are. The ironic thing is that the most evil person I have ever known in the NPS (or at least the one I have the least respect for), she painted like a rose. Personally, I think he paid her a bonus check to do that. There's no other logical explanation. That was not this book, however.And why I am getting tired of Nevada Barr? She also hates men (or appears to), so most men in the books (with the exception of Anna's lovers and the one exception above) are painted pretty badly. That can get grating after several novels. I enjoyed her earliest books the most, and they've tended to get more annoying as you go along, with this one being the worst yet. The topic is awful, and she claims some of the characters used to be Mormon, although they are clearly a spin off from Fundamentalists instead, but she clearly doesn't know the difference. It's also clear she doesn't know anything about Mormons and did not get anyone to review those sections for believability. She claims one character got a Master's in liturigical music at BYU (I had to look that up), and then "worked" in a temple for a couple years after college as if that was his job. And her portrayal of the women was even worse, but I don't know much more about Fundamentalists than she does, and I assume that's what she was really trying to describe under the wrong name. Granted, people can leave the church for any reason and make any choices at any time, but there should be enough resemblance to make it credible, and she failed miserably on this one.
Setting: Rocky Mountain National ParkMain Character: Anna Pigeon a fictional law enforcement ranger for the National Park Service.Plot/Storline: Anna Pigeon leaves her new husband, Sheriff Paul Davidson, back in Mississippi, to assume a new post in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, where she encounters a serial killer and a strong, determined woman, Heath Jarrod, much like herself. Heath, a former ice climber now confined to a wheelchair after a near-fatal fall, feels depressed, isolated and helpless. **Review** Once again, the storyline of this story is very dark, and disturbing. It follows the story of Heath, and two children who escape from an occult run by Robert Proffit. Proffit is truly an evil man, a rapists, and has no redeeming values at all.This book doesn't use the natural surroundings of Rocky Mountain National Park to tell the story like others did. Instead, it delves into the darkness of the mind of a psychotic killer. There's alot of violence in this book as well. And, as usual, Anna gets the hell beat out of her, yet again!
What do You think about Hard Truth (2006)?
This is a novel full of suspense with two heroines: Anna, the ranger, and Heath, a woman thrust into the story. Both have issues which help drive the plot. While the "story" of the book involves a religious group, Anna's strong anti-religious leaning is overdone, actually leading to distraction of the reading experience as the reader wonders what is her underlying problem. Her constant "digs" put in question the viability of her relationship (and now marriage) to Paul Davidson since he is a minister/sheriff. Unfortunately, none of this will be resolved in this story since that isn't what the novel is about; thus one wonders why the constant barrage.Anna is suspicious of everyone except the killer. She lets her guard down, proving she hasn't learned from her previous novels. There are aspects of the story that are extremely unbelievable - she falls off a cliff and is unable to get out of the ravine for 24 hours but there is no need to see a doctor or go to the hospital once she is rescued. All in all, Anna is an interesting character but in the novels I've read, nothing new is learned about her to understand her - it's just one more dangerous event she gets out of ... again.
—Nancy Bandusky
Im a huge fan of Anna Pigeon but this is my least favorite thus far. I give it three stars because it was well written enough to keep me up reading, wanting to finish this book, and yet I found it to be more horror cross over than mystery. I actually like horror but not when I expect a mystery, the cat abuse scenes were horrid, as was the end of the novel....the end was satisfying but more in a Silence of the Lambs/Children of the Corn sort of way...yet Barr tried to wrap it up with usual Anna Pigeon charm which seemed awkward and inappropriate given the extreme subject matter of this particular installment...a page turner, but more disturbing than expected and I think the author was in too big of a hurry to end it on a semi pleasant note like the rest of the series.
—Christi Nash
I still gave this three stars because I'm a sucker for the character Anna Pigeon, and in this book we meet another woman of similar spirit. In Hard Truth Barr tries to weave two stories into one as she did in her 2006 novel Flashback, but this time it didn't seem to work. The sociopathic serial killer was a new villan-type for her, and trying to also work in a fundamentalist polygamist cult was too much; the cult angle was too stereotypical and didn't really resolve itself satisfactorily. (Oddly, it bears a resemblance to the situation earlier this year in Eldorado Texas, though this book was written two years earlier.) I appreciate that she's trying to explore moral complexity, but there are lots of other situations in which victims often act against their own self-interest that could have been explored with more authenticity and depth.
—Danna
