Search - Blind Descent (Anna Pigeon, Bk 6)

I generally like the Anna Pigeon stories, although sometimes they get a bit tedious. This one is my favorite of the four or five I've read in the series. I am fascinated by caves, yet have a healthy near-claustrophic fear of them. So does Anna Pigeon.

When she joins a rescue team to descend into the almost unexplored deep parts of Carlsbad Caverns, all sorts of interesting things transpire. The writing is excellent--I could actually feel the emotions (fear, primarily) as the story went on. This story even affected my dreams for a time!

I recommend it. The mystery elements are good, but the actual feeling of being way down deep in the bowels of the earth in tiny, tight places as well as in huge empty underground rooms is the main reason to read this amazing story.

Amazon.com
Feisty, resourceful forest ranger Anna Pigeon faced everything from raging fires to deep-water dives with cool aplomb in her first five adventures. Very early in Blind Descent her courage is put to an even greater test when she learns that a woman seriously injured while exploring a cave next door to New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns is a friend who has requested Pigeon's help in getting her out. "A chilling image filled Anna's mind: herself crouched and whimpering, fear pouring like poison through her limbs, shutting down her brain as the cave closed in around her." Pushing aside her fears, Pigeon takes the plunge, leading readers through a truly harrowing series of tight squeezes. Nevada Barr is so good at involving us in Anna's terror that when she finally resurfaces, we share her "unadulterated joy. Even the dirt smelled alive... When she saw her first stars, she croaked out her delight from tired lungs." Above ground, Anna quickly gets involved in two possibly linked murders and becomes a rifleman's target. As we share the progress of her investigation, a sneaky suspicion starts to grow of possible suspects within the small community of spelunkers and National Park Service bureaucrats. Barr couldn't possibly ask Anna to go back underground again, could she? When it happens, of course, it seems inevitable--and just as frightening as the first time

Anna Pigeon must descend into a 300 mile long cave system, to help a fellow ranger who's been injured.

Overcoming her claustrophobia, she discovers evidence that that there is much more to fear than the cave.