Flashback

Rating:
Summary: Flashback
Review: A disappointing addition to the series. Language is stilted, dual story line distracting. Neither story line is believable. Alternating chapters lack continuity.

Rating:
Summary: Parallel stories
Review: Anna Pigeon finds herself in the isolated Dry Tortuga National Park as temporary supervisory ranger replacing a man who has suffered from delusions and mental problems. The timing seems right, as Anna has just been proposed to by Sheriff Paul Davidson in Mississippi and she needs some time and space to consider the offer. She finds that entertainment is lacking on the small islands, so she's pleased when her sister sends letters that their great-great-aunt wrote while her husband was commander of Fort Jefferson on Garden Key. The book alternates a chapter on Anna's investigation of suspicious activities at the park with letters from her great-aunt which describe her life during Civil War times when the fort was used as a prison. The most notorious prisoners were two men who were thought to be conspirators in Lincoln's assassination, and were thus reviled by all those around them. Although at times it's frustrating for the reader to be forcibly moved from one exciting plot to the other, the two stories are well-written and interestingly intertwined. Anna, ever the intrepid heroine, goes through a series of death-defying scenarios, but emerges as a surprisingly vulnerable character. Kudos to Nevada Barr for another enjoyable read!

Rating:
Summary: A breakthrough for Anna Pigeon and her creator
Review: As a writer myself, I am aware that writers must keep challenging themselves and setting new goals to keep themselves moving forward. Moving back and forth between past and present allows the author to experiment with new forms and keeps the reader from becoming bored with a familiar format.

Not that we could ever be bored with Anna, the no-nonsense ranger, who grows herself as she allows romance to enter her life in the unlikely form of Paul Davidson, a rare combo of priest and sheriff. Here Anna flexes her administrative skills and buys herself time to review Paul's marriage proposal, as she serves as Acting Supervisory Ranger on an isolated Caribbean island. Anna retrieves her boating skills from her Lake Superior job - the second in the series - and yet she's become older and wiser, comfortable with being in charge.

Like Anna, the supporting cast consists of three-dimensional characters. Background checks reveal criminal past of a kind-hearted person and fail to disclose evil in one who appears to have a past. A ranger who appears ludicrously over-zealous turns out to be a hero.

True, Nevada Barr lingers lovingly over Anna's surroundings -- because Anna does, too. Anna puts up with the NPS bureaucracy so she can, as she says, have time with sights and sounds the tourists only glimpse on a quick run-through. She has friends and she knows love, but her deepest relationships come from a sense of place.
She's grown accustomed to being dropped into a group of strangers, where physical reality takes precedence over emotional self-awareness: in several books, she's naked or clad only in her "underpants" among strangers
as she accomplishes her goal of saving lives, catching criminals and maintaining her own hold on sanity.

This book lets us spend more time in Anna's company and also treats us to a page-turning modern mystery. I have to admit I skimmed over the latter parts of the historical story, which was less compelling than the modern version. the The historical "letters" seemed to use suspiciously contemporary language and imagery.

Rating:
Summary: Historical past of this national park is incredible...
Review: Barr really did a good job on this particular book. As other reviewers have said, it's nice to see her back on target with her books. What made this particular book so interesting is the background of this park, which I never even knew existed! It's a fortress built about 70 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico from Florida. Originally built to serve military purposes during the Civil War, but the war ended and so it's purpose was changed from a prison to house POWs from the Southern side, to house other more famous prisoners, including some of the men purported to have involvement in the killing of President Lincoln, including the doctor who set the leg of of Lincoln's assasin.

As someone who is very into geneaology, history, old letters, and Lincoln because of being related to him by way of his wife, Mary Todd, this was an incredible historical find, and Barr has whetted my appetite to find out more about Dry Tortugas National park. It's definitely a place I want to visit.

Anna Pigeon is as usual being her own worse enemy. No wonder she likes cats so much...her own curiousity and lack of fear get her into many of her scrapes. All to the good in this story, where she has to save not only herself and her friends in the park, but also rescue illegal immigrants from being slaughtered and taken advantage of. More examples of man's inhumanity to men...like we really need any more.

Anna does finally learn to stop running away from another commitment to a good man because of what happened in her first marriage (her husband was killed in an accident in the first year or so).

This book was a fast read, three evenings in spite of dissertation work. I hope to see more from Barr. She seems to have gotten a second wind, which is rare in series. As always the descriptions of the parks are phenomenal, as Barr knows what she is talking about.

Karen Sadler

Rating:
Summary: Two Stories from Dry Tortugas - murder and mayhem mark both!
Review: Barr's 11th Anna Pigeon story, like all her books except her last ("Hunting Season") which took place in the same locale as "Deep South" {in the Natchez Trace}, has a most unusual setting: the Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys. Little more than a placeholder for Fort Jefferson, a Union Prison from Civil War days, this small strip of land becomes temporary duty for Pigeon while the former supervisor is on mental health leave. Soon, Anna is embroiled in danger and intrigue - a diving incident nearly proves fatal, and in quick succession she is drugged and locked up by thugs to keep her out of the way of a smuggling operation.
------ Meanwhile, the current story alternates with one Anna is reading from some hundred-year-old letters of a distant relative who is similarly telling a story about alleged Lincoln assassination prisoners befriended by her younger sister at the fort. Suspense builds as we begin to wonder how both stories turn out, which naturally enough occurs in the last two chapters.

Barr has a track record of telling a good tale, with a non-stereotypical, believable leading lady, with more than a modicum of risk-taking, crime, and escape as a dominant theme. "Flashback", referring to both the modern and the old story, is no exception and reveals our heroine at her best, while treating us to the old story as a pastime. While at first we were a little irritated at one story constantly interrupting the other, we were soon enough captivated by both to overlook the somewhat disjointed plot flow. Moreover, in the end, not everything turns out peaches and cream; while both stories come to a logical conclusion, both have factors that dissatisfy and disappoint, a reflection of true life instead of Hollywood. We suspect this latest Nevada Barr will find favor with both her extensive fan club as well as new readers. For a somewhat different forty-ish heroine in wildly different geographic settings, with danger at every turn, give Anna Pigeon and Nevada Barr a try!

Rating:
Summary: two mysteries add to atmosphere
Review: Before accepting a temporary supervisor's job at the Dry Tortugas National Park, an island 70 miles off Key West, park ranger Anna Pigeon had never heard of the place. Though most of the park is under water, the above-ground part is covered by Fort Jefferson, a brick behemoth built during the Civil War and obsolete before it was finished. The diving is fabulous, but after two weeks Anna is ready for something else to distract her from thinking about wedlock (fans will remember Sheriff Paul Davidson). She's beginning to understand how her predecessor went mad after his girlfriend left him.

Then her sister sends a box of letters from her great-great-aunt, Raffia, wife of Fort Jefferson's commanding officer in 1865, by which time the fort was a military prison, full of deserters and rebel prisoners. That same night Anna's second-in-command, a spit and polish type, goes missing on patrol. And the story - both stories - told in alternating, cliff-hanger chapters, takes off.

Raffia's story involves her 16-year-old sister, a handsome rebel soldier brutalized by a thuggish sergeant, and the arrival of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, including Dr. Samuel Mudd, who proclaims himself innocent of anything except setting the assassin's leg. Intrigue and collusion are in the charged air and a young girl's romanticism can get people killed. Barr brings the original fort to teeming life through the lonely, compassionate eyes and tart voice of a woman isolated in an uncommunicative army marriage.

The present-day story involves a number of breathtaking near-death experiences for Anna, as well as spectacular dives and dogged detective work piecing together a tangled (but not totally surprising) modern conspiracy which culminates in a gorgeously over-the-top finale. The parallel tale-telling works well to entangle the two though it can be maddening leaving Anna trapped at the bottom of the ocean with her air hose just out of reach....

But, as always, Barr's ("Hunting Season," "Firestorm") evocation of the natural setting (and the human menace) is vivid and the action scenes are among her best.

Rating:
Summary: Great Rebound for Barr!
Review: Don't let the slow beginning fool you. "Flashback" is the best Nevada Barr book since "Deep South." This time around, Anna, sans dog and erstwhile fiancee Paul, is stationed for a brief time on the Dry Tortugas--the southernmost point of the Florida Keys, and therefore of the United States.

It should be a quiet, sleepy respite for Anna, who is filling in for the regular ranger--a man who has gone inexplicably mad. But then--where Anna goes, trouble follows, and this outing is no exception. In very short order, Anna, too, begins to fear she is losing her mind. There are ghosts that appear and disappear, flashing lights that cannot be, noises that may or may not be real, and the reality of the spooky Civil War fort that makes up the national park may just serve to take Anna's sanity away for good.

Told against this very interesting backdrop is another story entirely--that of Anna's ancestor Raffia Coleman, wife of the Civil War Union commander of the fort, which in those days housed Confederate prisoners, not the least of whom was the notorious Dr. Mudd, accused of helping to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Through a series of letters written by Raffia (and sent to Anna by her sister Molly), a dark and brooding mystery unfolds. Although this device has been used by other others, most notably by Anita Shreve (in "The Color of Water"), it in no way detracts from the interesting juxtaposition between Civil War times and the all-too-frightening present.

As Anna hallucinates between dreams of her great great aunt's letters and the strange goings-on of the present, the reader becomes rivited. When Barr is on, she is really on--and this book proves the point. A tragic murder of the past, and a deeping mystering of the present all entertwine to make Anna struggle for her wits and her sanity.

A good, solid yarn. Welcome back, Nevada Barr and Anna!

Rating:
Summary: still good after eleven books
Review: Fans of the Anna Pidgeon books will like this eleventh installment in the series. This time, Anna is stationed at Fort Jefferson at Dry Tortugas Park, a set of small islands off the coast of Florida. There is the usual large cast of primary and peripheral characters and the usual twist at the end that makes it hard to guess just who the criminal is during the first half of the book. Every other chapter focuses on Anna's ancestors who were at the fort in its active days. I found this storyline somewhat interesting, but kind of distracting. The book would have been fine without it. Still, I enjoyed the book and can't wait for the twelfth!

Rating:
Summary: delightful Nevada Barr tale
Review: Forty eight hours after receiving a proposal from Sheriff Paul Davidson in Natchez, Mississippi, Anna accepts a temporary posting as a temporary Supervisory Ranger in the National Parks Service. Her assignment is for eight to twelve weeks in the Dry Tortugas National Park on Gardenn Key, as far south as one can go and still remain in the United States. On the surface, the place seems like paradise but there is an evil undercurrent running beneath the surface that Anna taps into.

Anna's predecessor has gone insane and is currently undergoing treatment. His girlfriend Theresa mysteriously vanishes but what really arouses Anna's suspicion is the mysterious boat that explodes, killing two people with one of the victims wearing a smuggler's tattoo. Anna believes somebody is putting a drug in her bottled water. When she finally figures out what is going on, Anna has to act fast to prevent a massacre from occurring.

Nevada Barr intertwines the story of Anna's ancestors who lived on Tortugas right after the Civil War with what is happening to the heroine in the present day. Both stories are fascinating and keeps the reader's attention until the last page is turned. Anna has been in some very dangerous situations but this is her best adventure to date. It just doesn't get any better than FLASHBACK.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Flashback confusion
Review: I am an avid fan of Nevada Barr books - the great combination of national parks and mystery stories in her books blend together to form a unique and fantastic read. It is very hard to find her books here in Australia, so over time I have acquired the complete set of Anna Pigeon books via Amazon.

I managed to borrow Flashback from my local library, and read it in a few days. There were two factors that lead to only giving it four stars:

Being from Australia, I have little background knowledge of the American Civil War, and couldn't tell whether the characters such as Dr Samuel Mudd were based on real people or were fiction. I also found similar distance issues with Liberty Falling, as there were specific details that as a non-American, I couldn't quite relate to. I felt a little bit alienated whilst reading Flashback, and wondered whether I should undertake some research about the American Civil War before I continued any further. Nevertheless, I finished it without needing to.

Secondly, I also found the alternating chapters between Anna's activities and that of Aunt Raffia and Tilly hard to follow. A chapter would often end in a dramatic moment, and then the next would follow with a completely different tone. By the time that chapter was finished, I had forgotten what was going on with Anna, (or Raffia), from two chapters ago. As I read it over a few days, this meant a little bit of backtracking occasionally to remind myself of where everyone was at.

I still think that Firestorm and Track of the Cat are the best in the series, and Blind Descent the most vividly descriptive.

I would recommend any of the Anna Pigeon series to mystery readers, those interested in female leads, and even more so, those interested in descriptive stories set in wilderness areas.