Rating: 
Summary: Going to the "High Country" with Nevada Barr
Review: This latest Anna Pigeon finds her working undercover at Yosemite National Park. She is working as a waitress at the Ahwahnee Hotel located in the park instead of her normal duties as a Park Ranger. Four park employees have vanished and Search and Rescue teams, some of the best in the business, have been unable to find the missing employees. The Deputy Superintendent puts it down to their youth and thinks they went hitchhiking to Mexico or somewhere warmer. Lorraine Knight, Superintendent of the Park, suspects something sinister and after an interview where the two women made an instant connection, Anna jumped at the assignment. Not that she was thrilled with working undercover as a waitress. But Anna has never been able to let a good mystery go and this one, where all were seen in separate places and times in the Park before vanishing, has her intrigued. Then there is the factor that, as long time readers of the series know, Anna is happiest when surrounded by soaring mountains where she can find her blessed solitude. This is a chance to do both. But from her first minutes in the park on the valley floor, known as "the ditch" by employees, she senses evil in man made form has taken root in the historic park. Her suspicions are quickly confirmed in very different ways and she begin to pull the wildly disparate pieces together which will lead to several violent confrontations. Unlike the last several books, Anna, for the most part, is calm and levelheaded. Gone are the delusions used to limited effect in her most recent novel, "Flashback." She isn't vacillating emotionally as she has done in the last several and while occasionally and understandably homesick, she manages to stay focused on the problems at hand. This novel is grounded firmly in reality and the danger of the moment and despite a nod to the evil that lurks within us all that can be unleashed at the right moment, it does not use artificial storytelling instruments such as flashbacks to ostensibly move the work forward. No letters from dead relatives or dreams in the night either. Instead, author Nevada Barr has gone back to what made her successful in the first place-straightforward intense storytelling like in her first novel "Track of the Cat." While no new ground is turned in terms of character development, this novel is a refreshing read. Anna seems more poised and competent than in the last several novels, as she should be considering her age. She still bumbles her way into trouble now and then but at the same time, she comes prepared in this one. Despite some of the negative reviews here, this novel works on all levels and becomes a fast paced intense read that features some of Nevada Barr's best wring in years. This one is well worth the read and hopefully showcases the author back in stride once again.
Rating: 
Summary: Anna Pigeon goes to my home park!
Review: This mystery of Nevada Barr's is slightly different then her other ones, but no less intriguing. Anna gets sent into Yosemite National Park in California, which in the winter is a bit less crowded but still packed enough with live-ins and visitors to constitute a small town. And like a small town, something bordering on disasterous has happened. Four young, bright, capable adults have gone disappearing at the same time, and enough time has elapsed to indicate they are mostly dead.
Anna comes in as a waitress in one of the nicer lodges, and infiltrates the young group who works there, trying to find out what possibly happened to these kids. Less on any given information by those she comes in contact with except for the elusive comment that 'there is gold in them there hills...' Anna goes for a walk to clear her mind and spot a 'flat' lake. My husband who is a member of a search and rescue team would tell you one of the first rules is to always let someone know where you are going to be. Anna doesn't obey this rule of the wild and walks into a situation which nearly gets her killed. It also makes her very mad, and like me, making Anna mad is not such a smart idea!
My only complaints about this book is that an experienced ranger would disregard one of the major rules of outdoor living...I know we have to suspend disbelief a bit, but this is a bit too much.
Other than that, loved reading about the park I grew up in, where my father as an engineer installed water tanks for dry seasons and took me with him in the middle of the winter when you could see mountain lion tracks all over the place. Yosemite was and continues to be a cool place...hope we can prevent Bush from ruining it and other national treasures like it!
Karen Sadler
Rating:
Summary: The Wild Outdoors
Review: This mystery of Nevada Barr's offers up a much better mystrey and story than the lack less Hunting Season. Ms. Barr takes a different approach with this one. Anna Pigeon is still the main character but instead of being in the role of a ranger, she is undercover as a waitress. Anna is sent into Yosemite National Park in California, in the winter following the disapperance of four young people. Anna makes a lousy waitress and is taken back when this is pointed out to her. But she still has the ability to find danager. Tired of her messy room mate and needing some space, she takes a day hike. Of course, her being the very independent Anna she lets no one know. After making a discovery that puts many of the pieces into place and her life in danger. She finds herself trying to stay alive while hiking out of the High Country at night. This is my only complaint with the book. Anna beats impossible odds, I know that as a reader we are to overlook BUT this is pushed to the extreme in High Country. After she survives as well as her attacker whom also is of super human abilities, the danager continues.
Anna must solve ALL "evil in Yoemite National Park, before it is consumed." This is done in typical Anna style, leading the reader along.
Rating: 
Summary: Anna Pigeon (undercover) getting harder to believe
Review: We've read every entry in Barr's Anna Pigeon (National Park Ranger / Supervisor) series and have generally enjoyed them for two distinct traits. The first are the unusual settings and the illuminating descriptions thereof. Almost like travelogues, Barr takes us from one Park to another, often in highly different geographic areas around our country, acquainting us with places many of us have not experienced. The second is that Anna is a real-life woman -- NOT overly gorgeous, overly intellectual, overly brave -- just kind of a normal person like the rest of us. So her persona, coupled with her obvious outdoor living and law enforcement skills, tends to create stories we believe and care about. Add a dash of danger and suspense, and Barr usually delivers a gripping, enjoyable mystery. Certainly in "High Country", we get another unusual setting -- California's (apparently) oft-gloomy Yosemite National Park. We find Anna on temporary assignment here looking into the mysterious (and likely, criminal) disappearance of four young Park employees. Her "cover" is working as a waitress at one of the Park hotel restaurants -- to our thinking, a regrettable choice as Anna's questioning and probing sessions with just about everybody label her not as a busybody, but some sort of spy. Thus all the events at the hotel were marred by what at best is a flawed premise. When Anna gets outdoors and goes hunting for either the missing persons or the probable suspects, things improve; but it seemed like it took an awful long hiking story (and a lot of pages) to get us closer to the real plot and story line of the novel. Several readers have complained the story ("drug plane crashes into lake") is based on a true-life event (without any hint from the author); it does have a ring of familiarity about it. The last few Anna Pigeon tales have seemed to fall short of the entertaining earlier entries in the set. Maybe as Anna continues to age, perhaps somewhat ungracefully, so do her exploits. Perhaps letting her retire would be a wise step after the current contract expires. Hopefully Barr can land a couple more gems before that happens.
Rating: 
Summary: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ANNA PIGEON??
Review: What has happened to the Anna Pigeon in Track of the Cat, Superior Death, Firestorm, Blind Descent, Ill Wind? That delightfully flawed character? Why has Ms. Barr been so fixated on teen angst, rednecks, drugs & their ilk? Where is the Ranger who found it sometimes "embarrassing to be human",(a line I still use from time to time). Where is all the politics between the NPS & the Forestry, before Anna was "Boss"?
In High Country we have Anna impersonating a waitress in Yosemite NP as part of an undercover assignment. Aside from a collection of the sleaziest, foulest-mouthed characters you'd never want to meet, we have four missing teens who may or may not be victims of foul play, two chefs & an assortment of fellow waitresses who may or may not be on the level-and do we really care?
Personally, as a former die-hard Anna Pigeon fan, I feel that this is Nevada's worst Anna Pigeon yet, & it hurts to say it. As others have mentioned, she doesn't paint a very desirable picture of Yosemite-I didn't get the feeling I had been there the way I did with her earlier books. In Firestorm, I almost felt ashes on my clothing & in Blind Descent, I had that claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in small spaces & so on. Maybe it is because it was set in winter-which I would think would be a spectacular time in any National Park-it paints the whole atmosphere with brooding strokes. Nevada Barr is obviously seeing a different place than Ansel Adams saw through his camera lens! Anna always did survive planned "mishaps" in superhero fashion, but we loved her & wanted her to survive. High Country almost goes beyond superwoman! The incident with the deer was completely uncalled for. I also felt that mentioning the real life murders was in bad taste & beside the point of the story (not that there was much point.)
This reader has gone from waiting with great anticipation for each new adventure, wondering where I'll be transported next, to ho hum; maybe I'll wait until I can get a good price on the paperback. I understand that her next book is set in Rocky Mountain NP, a park near & dear to my heart. It will be interesting to see if I recognize it. Nevada, please bring back the old Anna Pigeon-flaws & all.
Rating:
Summary: HIGH DRAMA IN THE HIGH SIERRAS
Review: When Ranger Anna Pigeon goes undercover as a waittress to investigate the disappearance of four young hikers fate serves up a plate of trouble:four men illegally squatting in a missing hikers cabin, her two roommates apparently poisoned, and a hypodermic needle filled with blood hidden in her sleeve.Her first clue to the mystery is in a letter from one of the missing campers, Trish Spencer,that a gold mine, figuratively speaking,may have been discovered in the mountains.
Working through the recipient of the letter ,Dickie Cauliff,Anna discovers that Dickie may have supplied dope to Trish and Trish is a small time dealer ready to make a big score.But what of the men squatting illegally in missing campers Dixon Crofters cabin?Anna discovers that the men are after the cargo of a downed airplane. What is the cargo worth killing over?The men want Anna dead and set off in a spellbinding search for her over the beautiful but dangerous terrain of a Sierra winter.Piece by piece Anna is drawn into a deadly game of hide and seek involving murder , greed , treachery, and ultimately Annas own survival.Maybe the answer lies with Annas co_workers Scott, Jim and a tyrannical head waitress named Tiny.With danger lurking in every nook and cranny of the mountain range Anna pursues a solution.
Written with the pulse of the Sierras beating beneath the surface,High Country is a tale of danger and mystery gauranteed to keep the reader on the edge of a psychological cliff.Nevada Barr invites the reader to look into the abyss of good and evil lurking in the soul of all men and woman.High Country provides an adrenalin rush as powerful , surprising and thrilling as scaling a mountain peak. A must read for any true mystery lover.
Rating:
Summary: a workable mystery, but with no spark
Review: With two exceptions, there was absolutely nothing distinctive about this novel. It was a workable, by-the-numbers murder mystery, competantly done. This is both good and bad compared to the rest of the Anna Pigeon series -- some of the books have been spectacularly bad and some of them have been quite good. This one was ... bland. The first exception was the fact that Anna was undercover. Most of the interest in the book came from this, as we got to see Anna interacting with people without the power of her badge, gun, and rank. The second exception (SPOILERS) is that much of the basic story is blatently stolen, and I was disappointed to find no reference of acknowledgment of that. The story of the pot plane that crashed into a lake in Yosemite and was found by a bunch of climbers is a) supposedly true (read John Long's autobiography), b) the basis of another novel called Angels Of Light, c) an influence on yet another novel called The Vortex, and d) one of the prime influences on the terrible movie Cliffhanger. In other words, the entire situation was borrowed, and there is no reference to that in this book. The closest she comes to this is a scene where Camp 4 has discovereed the wreck and she describes it as "the stuff of legends". But I was expecting at least an afterwards that made some mention of the fact that this plot scenario was not original. It seemed dishonest to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Barr-barous!
Review: Wonderful descriptions of Yosemite Park are offset by some of the worst editing l ever came across: awkward and poorly constructed sentences; terrible grammar; cliches galore, including the tired plot; trite dialogue; unexpected fanciful prose, e.g., "Primitive DNA lingering deep in her chromosomal helixes...". Whew! lt is my strong belief that this pedestrian novel was written and edited strictly for the purpose of garnering a Hollywood contract (and let's not overlook the Feminist Propaganda). Look at the situations: the grandeur of Yosemite; a female hero working undercover to find out about 4 missing employees; 4 loutish males who took the latter's cabin; the female hero finding her cabin trashed; the brilliant female Supervisor sent to Washington and replaced by a drunken male ignoramus; the female hero, severely injured, limping and crawling along in a dark forest and chased by 2 very nasty and "evil" men...who can't find her, even with their flashlights; the female hero, an experienced Park Ranger, setting fire to a tent cover in the middle of the forest...and lots more tripe and a few more male fools (even the "hunk" is an ex-con!). To give some credit, there are 2 nasty females..offset, of course, by far more solid and gorgeous ones.
Gee, can't you just see Cate Blanchett in the title role?
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