1995 mystery, third in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries
in US National Parks. Visitors to Mesa Verde Park and the Anasazi
cliff dwellings have been coming away with a strange and deadly
illness.
This one's back to a slowish start, and to the lush descriptions
of scenery… sometimes perhaps too lush, as they seem to end up as
substitutes for anything happening. Anna's at a loss for too much of
this book, even though the reader can work out at least roughly what's
going on.
Still, the supporting cast are excellent, and this is a story that
forces Anna to consider her problems and how she deals with them, and
consider that the means she's using may be becoming more problems in
themselves. Sometimes this even threatens to overpower the mystery,
though I suspect that may be deliberate given Anna's parlous state.
There are secondary concerns too, mostly sabotage, but several
personal ones, some of which turn out to be crucial to the eventual
solution of the main plot. But mostly this is Anna's book for hitting
rock bottom and just barely beginning to rebound.
Followed by Firestorm.
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