1998 mystery, sixth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries
in US National Parks. Lechugilla Cavern is a huge and largely
unexplored cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park; when a friend and
fellow ranger is injured there, Anna swallows her claustrophobia and
goes in to help with the evacuation.
This is not a book for the claustrophobic, except perhaps as part
of exposure therapy. Just from the setup, you can work out that at
some point Anna is going to be cast loose in the cave, with no light
or help, and have to try to make her way through it… and sure enough
this happens. That descriptive passage is some of the best material
here, and indeed that Barr has written at all, and she sensibly saves
it for the climactic moments; working out what the structure of the
book must be is no bar to enjoying it. (Though the ending is a bit
abrupt.)
There's a large cast, but this time they're well delineated, and I had
no trouble remembering who was who. The mystery plot is fairly simple,
and the killer gives him/herself away to the reader quite early, but
there's still the mystery of how Anna is going to go about finding
whodunnit for herself and making sure there won't be any more murders.
For example, of a nosy Anna Pigeon.
I think this is probably the best of the series that I've read. One
could start here and not miss too much, but I appreciated the sympathy
I'd built up for Anna and her friend. Followed by Liberty Falling.
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