Blood Lure

Rating:
Summary: A delightful and educational look at Glacier National Park
Review: Anna Pigeon returns in BLOOD LURE, as she take time away from her regular park duties to assist with bear DNA studies at Glacier National Park. Right at the beginning, we, along with Anna, learn the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) recipes to lure bears. (I must admit this isn't the first time Barr has presented me with more information than I care to learn about a particular subject.) Also, the description of the bear attack on Anna's research group is chilling and enough to make me forget any ideas I'd ever had about going camping!

Barr unravels her clues carefully and fairly; the reader has ample opportunity to put everything together (along with Anna) to solve the mystery. Yet the clues weren't blatantly obvious. Barr did a terrific job with her plotting on this book, and she deserves a pat on the back. BLOOD LURE is well worth reading. Thumbs up!

Rating:
Summary: Grin And Bear It
Review: I have a soft spot in my heart for Glacier National Park. When I was a teenager in the early '70s, my family made trips on Amtrack from Pittsburgh to Glacier and I had a grizzly bear encounter both trips. One of the encounters was after a long day of hiking that included part of the Highline trail. As an adult, I met my Dad and my stepmom in the park twice in the early '90s. With my past on the table,I write this review with unbiased a heart as possible.

Blood Lure by Nevada Barr is a very good mystery. It isn't her best Anna Pigeon novel, but still a worthy read. Anna, our ranger and sleuth, is on a training trip to Glacier National Park to learn about wildlife DNA studies and grizzly bears. She is working with Joan, the bear expert, and Rory, a moody teenager on an Earthwatch trip. Rory's stepmom plays the role of dead body. Suspects abound [both human and ursine], clues abound, and even though the end of the novel runs towards the preposterous, the ending is not out of keeping with the earlier novels AND it could happen in real life. Remember folks, Anna Pigeon is a fictional character and most likely gets away with things that would rip right out of the envelope of the permissible in real life. That said, the end brings my rating down low enough to give it 4 stars. This isn't the Anna Pigeon novel I would recommend a new reader start with. My advice is to start at the beginning of the series with Track Of The Cat or, if you must dip in partway through the series, I would advise you start with Ill Wind or Liberty Falling.

Rating:
Summary: I'll definitely be looking for Ms. Barr's back list!
Review: I've discovered Nevada Barr. No, it's not a candy bar made in Nevada. She's a mystery author and creator of the series character, Anna Pigeon-Park Ranger.

In BLOOD LURE Anna takes us on a tour of Waterton/Glacier National Peace Park, which straddles the border between Montana and Canada. Anna is sent with Joan Rand and a teenage boy on an assignment to study grizzly bears.

One night their camp is attacked by a strange-acting bear that didn't appear to be interested in food, but more interested in scaring them off as if it were more human than animal. The teenage boy ends up missing, and a camper is found dead--her neck snapped and the flesh of her face cut away, suggesting she was murdered.

Anna's beloved mountains have become something sinister as she hikes onward looking for clues and hunting the beast stalking the trails. No man could snap a neck like that without crushing the skull, and no animal can cut away flesh. What on earth is Anna hunting?

BLOOD LURE is a complex, in depth story that keeps you working to solve the mystery. You'll be terrified of the bear, mystified by the park, and always looking over your shoulder for the killer to strike again. One thing you won't see coming is the explosive and surprising ending.

Though the story had a few laugh out loud moments, it's steeped in drama. You'll get intimate with the nature of beasts--both animal and man. You'll feel like you're right there in the mountains with Anna. I'll definitely be looking for Ms. Barr's back list.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful story, but . . .
Review: Let me begin by saying that I love Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon books, especially when the park the story concerns is in the West, parks with which I am familiar. For instance, the description of the firestorm in the book of that name was so wonderfully written and so compelling that one's heart pounded with fear when reading it. Few times have I read action narrative that pulled me so totally into the scene. I've read that book and especially that scene over and over again and it just gets better.

The location for "Blood Lure" being Glacier National Park and concerned with the beautiful Grizzly bear, I really wanted to love this book. And most of it I did. The story was intriguing and the plotting was masterful, the ending was a little abrupt but almost completely satisfying. Anna Pigeon is a wonderfully three-dimensional character and Barr never makes a misstep with her - Anna never acts out of character even as (or especially as) that character develops over the time frame of all nine novels.

What I did NOT enjoy were the many errors throughout the book. Words were missing, punctuation was missing, punctuation was incorrect (the kind that makes it difficult to figure out what was meant), etc. It's like watching a film and being so engrossed in the story that you are "there" - and then you see the microphone hanging over the scene above the actors' heads. BANG! You're back in the theater again. On page 5 of "Blood Lure" Anna is introduced to Rory Van Slyke, a teenager with Earthwatchers volunteering to help with the Grizzly DNA project that has brought Anna to Glacier. Anna responds to the introduction by saying, "How you do?" There are four or five more instances like that throughout the book. Barr's words deserve better than this. These kind of sloppy editing errors snap one out of the story and ruin the flow of description and of dialogue.

I'm sure that there will be folks out there who will read through this review and correct my grammar and spelling... I believe that editors should stop relying on spell-check and do a better job of actual editing.

One last item: Having been to both Glacier and Waterton Parks (or Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park), the map in the front of the book and the geographical references within the book confused me. Consequently, I went to the Glacier Park website and downloaded the Park map. I guess maybe some of Waterton Park is in British Columbia (two campsites?), but the vast majority including the part shown on the map in the front of "Blood Lure" and the part around Flattop Mountain described in the book are directly south of Alberta, Canada, not British Columbia.

Sigh . . . color me a grouchy old woman, but I was very disappointed that a Penguin-Putnam book was this carelessly edited. However, if these kinds of errors don't bother you, by all means go ahead and read the book. The story is great if you can ignore the distractions.

Rating:
Summary: wonderful way to hear a novel
Review: this is the first book casette that I have even bought & I love it. It is great. Don't have to sit down to read the book. Just play it while I am doing my house work. Makes the time go by faster & I still get to know the story. This is a great way to "read a novel"