Product Description

"All is not well in grizzly country...Barr's red herrings and sly twists culminate in one huge payoff." (Entertainment Weekly)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34812 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780425183755
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Park ranger Anna Pigeon, the fortyish heroine of Barr's popular series, is back, tracking grizzlies through the unforgiving landscape of Glacier National Park as part of a scientific investigation that's outlined with more detail than anyone who's not totally fascinated by these awesome animals will care about. In fact, the description of what actually goes into the lures set to attract the bears so they can be tagged and counted is guaranteed to rumble the strongest stomach--but that's just the back story in this newest Pigeon adventure. When the mutilated body of the stepmother of one of the bear trackers turns up in a remote corner of the park, and it becomes clear that she met death at the hands of a human rather than the claws of a grizzly, Anna goes on the hunt for the killer.

Barr's strength is in depicting the natural surroundings in which her heroine finds inspiration, solace, and comfort, and she limns the gorgeous landscape of Glacier with consummate skill. But her plotting leaves much to be desired, and when she finally reveals the killer's identity, motivation, and especially his accomplice, the discriminating reader may be tempted to throw this book at the nearest teddy bear. The trick ending is too much to stomach, unless you're a grizzly who'll eat (almost) anything. Up to that point, however, there's much to appeal to Barr's fans: another beautifully drawn portrait of a piece of America's vanishing wilderness and a few hours in the company of an appealingly cranky heroine whose appreciation of it knows no bounds. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
The latest entry in this excellent series featuring National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon is one of Barr's best. Anna has been assigned to work temporarily in Montana's Glacier National Park, where she seems more at home than in her recent forays to East Coast parks, and learns how to do DNA studies on wildlife by working with a biologist, Joan, on a study of grizzly bears. Anna, Joan and a young, inexperienced volunteer, Rory, are sent out into the park's wilderness areas to set lures for the grizzlies. They use a powerful and nasty-smelling concoction, mixed with cow's blood, that the grizzlies find irresistible. Once the bears rub up against the trees or barbed wire that have been coated with the lure, samples of their DNA can be collected from the hair and skin left behind. In their remote campsite one night, Anna and Joan amazingly survive a grizzly bear attack on their tents unscathed, only to find that Rory has gone missing. As park rangers and rescue teams hike the mountainous park looking for the missing teenager, they find instead the dead body of a woman whose face has been horribly mutilated. Rory is an obvious suspect, as is the bear who attacked the camp. Barr focuses on the wilderness park and its endangered population of grizzlies rather than on Anna's personal life and problems, and this makes for a tightly plotted, satisfying read. The author's masterful descriptions of the natural world immeasurably enhance an exciting, suspenseful story that is sure to flirt with bestseller lists. Mystery Guild main selection and Literary Guild alternate selection.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Having guided readers on behind-the-scenes tours of New York City's Ellis and Liberty Islands (Liberty Falling) and Mississippi's Natchez Trace Parkway (Deep South), Barr returns to the West in her ninth mystery. On a training assignment to study grizzly bears in the Waterton-Glacier National Peace Park, near the Montana-Canada border, park ranger Anna Pigeon hikes into the mountains with researcher Joan Rand and an Earthwatch volunteer, Rory Van Slyke. But Anna's joy at returning to the wilderness quickly turns to terror when their camp is ravaged in the middle of the night by a grizzly. Rory disappears, and in the morning the faceless corpse of a female camper is discovered. Was the woman the victim of the same bear, or was there a more sinister human element involved? While Barr's love of nature and the outdoors shines through, her plot is rather formulaic and dull, lacking the intensity and excitement of her better novels (Blind Descent, A Superior Death). Still, her fans will want to read. [Mystery Guild main selection and Literary Guild alternate selection; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/00.]DWilda Williams, "Library Journal.
-DWilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A wonderful story, but . . .
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.

Read this book--a truly superb mystery!
In "Blood Lure," Nevada Barr has written one of the best mysteries I've read in a long time. I was absolutely stumped from beginning to end, but when I read the solution, everything made sense and fit together nicely. Best of all, when I look back over the story, I see that Barr provided the reader with all the necessary clues along the way. I just didn't have the brain power to figure it out myself.

Park Ranger Anna Pigeon is a fascinating character, and the "hook" of this series--each book takes place at a different national park--is absolutely unique (that's saying something when I can name not one, but TWO mystery series featuring cleaning lady sleuths, of all things). Pigeon is a loner, a woman who has to remind herself to fake softness and sympathy when required. She is completely at home hiking and camping in the great outdoors.

This book finds her faith in nature shaken, however, when she is attacked by a grizzly bear while working with researchers to gather bear DNA information in Waterton/ Glacier National Peace Park. When one of her companions goes missing after the attack, and then a camper is found murdered off a nearby trail, Anna finds her darkest suspicions aroused.

Although I would recommend this series, and this book in particular, to anyone, it is a particular treat for anyone who enjoys camping or hiking. Barr's detailed description of life within the National Park system is engrossing. These people have chosen lives that are completely at odds from everyday existence as most of us experience it. And if you don't enjoy camping or hiking, you can still enter and enjoy this foreign world without having to experience the inconvenience of mosquitos directly, not to mention the terror of a grizzly attack.

Grin And Bear It
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.