Rating: 
Summary: Author Rising
Review: More intensely personal than her earlier adventures, this story opens with an already distraught Anna Pigeon, Park Ranger, attending on her deathly sick confidant and sister in the urban jungle of NYC, while bunking with a friend on Liberty Statue Island. This story has greater philosophical, or morose, depth to the character, full of ruminations, and glorying in the decay of once urban splendor. I don't recall such a passionate dislike of cities on Anna's part. The scenes shift between New York harbor and the uptown hospital, islands of familiarity connected by the subway. She effectively communicates feeling very alone in a crowded city, her sister dying, a lover wandering, a roommate hostile. Barr employs the current ghost fad, but to her own ends to create a creepy and vaguely sinister Ellis Island. Many clues to the subtly developing mysteries are dropped, but I wrote most off as just part of a coincidental ghost story given for atmosphere. There's even one amazing point where Anna actually lists all the clues flat out, as the eureka moment flashes into her bruised head, although much remained unclear in mine. Very effective. Barr's writing has improved steadily, abetted by the fact each story is different and appropriate to wildly different National Park settings: mountain, lake, cliff, forest, beach, cavern, and now historical statue. She gives us some of the local insider lore in Anna's conversations, but skillfully avoids potted "ranger lectures." Hmm, what's left to do...river, military, museum, scenic, volcanic.... Anywhere I look forward to the next.
Rating: 
Summary: One of Barr's best written mystery novels!
Review: Barr is definitely one of the current most intelligent writers of this genre. It is always a pleasure to pick up one of her books, because her writing is so well done and her mysteries tend to revolve not just around the who-done-it part of the book, but the interaction of her protagonist with her sister and other humans in the story. Since many of these national parks are places I would love to visit but probably won't be able to, she satisfies a need and also raises curiosity about places I had never heard of before. This ability on Barr's part is the sign of a good writer. This particular mystery is given in bits and pieces. Just as in real life when family members are taking up our time, we tend not to be able to give the needed amount of cranial space over to our jobs or avocations, so to is Anna mainly concerned about her sister and unable to tie in the various pieces of the puzzle. The loving way in which the story between the two sisters is written is wonderful, and does not detract from Barr's mystery...rather it adds a sense of reality to it. The pieces were there, but the ending was a surprise to me. That is fine...I don't like my mysteries so easily solved that I have the solution in the first few chapters. A good part of Barr's writing ability revolves around her characterizations. As a reader, I appreciate it when an author fleshes out the people in her stories. I want them to be three dimensional, and more like real people. I think part of Barr's success is the unusual employment of Anna. Many of us would have liked to go into working for the Park service, but the realities of life and families do not allow us that option. However, the portrayals of the people who 'invade' the parks and their idiosyncracies make for fun reading, especially when we recognize some of them. Barr also does us a service by pointing out the need to take care of our natural resources, and in this case, part of our heritage, Ellis Island about which I knew nothing. I look forward to reading her next novel, and wonder where we are going next! Karen Sadler Science Education, University of Pittsburgh
Rating: 
Summary: Liberty Flunked
Review: Nevada Barr needs to return to settings that enable her to describe nature, animals and peoples' reactions to them. New York is too sterile, too controlled and too contrived a setting. After finding this author, I have read and enjoyed all of her books but this one. Her earlier works were very refreshing because they offered the reader wonderful insights into our nation's parks while allowing us to revel in Anna Pigeon's character. Please go back to the country, Nevada!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Liberty Falling is the first Anna Pigeon mystery I have read and I will definitely check into the others! Being a native NYer I was intrigued by the setting of Liberty Island. Then, I was spellbound as Nevada Barr wove the story and history of the island like I had never heard before. Going with her through the abandoned hospitals on the island at night was totally eerie. There were enough twists and turns in the story to keep any mystery buff guessing. Although other reviewers have said they didn't think she did a good job with the setting, I have to disagree wholeheartedly. I've been to Liberty Island and Ellis Island but while reading Liberty Falling, I felt like a tourist. Great read!
Rating:
Summary: Loved learning more about Liberty Island but...
Review: lately Barr's mysteries leave me cold. I enjoyed her earlier books and their descriptions of our National Parks. Her musings are humorous and entertaining. However, the mysteries too often lead to her fellow rangers. Even so, I will probably read "Deep South" and give Anna Pigeon one more try.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting and spooky!
Review: In a fascinatingly different locale, Anna Pigeon is refreshingly still... herself... as she creeps through eerie crumbling ruins in the middle of the night in pursuit of mysterious goings-on on Ellis Island and at the Statue of Liberty. In Anna's dealings with her sister and "Fred the Fed" Barr reveals new depths in Anna's character. And as always, I found myself madly turning pages right up to the end.
Rating:
Summary: A cerebral mystery
Review: Anna Pigeon is staying with a ranger friend on Liberty Island while she visits her sick sister Molly who's in the hospital with a life-threatening kidney ailment. While living in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, Anna gets involved in the death of a supposed suicide. A teen-age girl leaps to her death from the top of Liberty's pedestal. If that's not enough, a few days later the security guard who tried to stop the girl from jumping dies the same way in almost the same spot. Before she knows it, Anna is caught up in a mystery involving a sleazy doctor and Castro look-alike. Like all Anna Pigeon novels, this moves slowly. It does take quite a while for the bones of the mystery to appear but Anna Pigeon is such a likeable heroine and Barr such a good writer that the book never seems to drag. At times, Barr's stream-of-conciousness style of writing can be hard to follow but overall the novel is a fun read.
Rating:
Summary: Better than your standard beach novel/mystery
Review: In a desperate last ditch effort to buy books before boarding the plane for another year in Amman, I picked up Liberty Falling. It seemed like a beach novel and next to Juneteenth and Interpreter of Maladies, it looked out of place in my basket. Nevada Barr is a decent story-teller though and this was not a bad beach mystery after all! Set in Manhattan and on Liberty and Ellis Islands, our protagonist, Anna Pigeon is a Park Service employee from out west who is in New York to watch over the recovery of her sister, Molly. Easy to read, a fast-paced, no-brainer sort of book, Liberty Falling surrounds the environs of a highly visible national park and the scary realities of domestic (white trash) terrorism. The story really begins when, in Anna's presence, a young teen-aged girl falls (or is pushed?) from the top of the Statue of Liberty. The mystery was well-woven and I actually found Barr's descriptions of the islands off Manhattan rather fascinating. In the Introduction she gives us the opportunity to learn more about and support the renovations and restorations on both Liberty and Ellis Islands, a worth cause for our Nation's heritage.
Rating:
Summary: LIBERTY RISING; NEW YORK FALLING
Review: Anna Pigeon needs lots of elbow room. New York City is not the place to get it. This is not one of the author's best efforts. Her style seems crabbed (and crabby!)when she cannot luxuriate in her rolling descriptions of open spaces and bare land. I couldn't get a sense of focus in the story. She traveled and traveled via subway, ferry, and cab, but was never pleased at where she'd been or where she was going. There were a few too many characters and subplots to keep track of. I like Anna, her stream of consciousness chiding herself (she really thinks some bad thoughts), her humor and her sense of self and reality. I don't get bored with her skittishness toward romance, booze and intimacy. That's her. I wish she'd at least be an ex-smoker. I'd enjoy her remarks. It seems all contemporary female crime/mystery writers rigidly require their heroines not only to not smoke, but condemn, deplore, and excorciate anyone who does or has been in the room ahead of them. Ah well. In conclusion: I think it very plausible to write an entire book about a person you heartily dislike, but not a place. Anna's antipathy toward New York City could have been covered in a few pages. Repetition does not strengthen the argument.
Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable read, turned me on to a new author.
Review: This was the first Anna Pigeon mystery I've read. I found it entertaining and suspenseful. I hate starting a mystery and having a good ideal how it will be resolved within the first hundred pages...no problem with that here! Barr's descriptive writing really give the reader a sense of the environment and I love her middle age, non-beauty queen heroine. After reading this book, I immediately ordered Deep South and liked it, too. However I am wondering if the lack of any significant female characters is a recurring theme in Barr's novels. I will be finding out as I plan to read more of them in the future.
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