Blind Descent

Blind Descent

By Nevada Barr (336 pages)

Published by Berkley

Bookish rating: 3.25

This is the fourth in a mystery series with an outdoorsy heroine, Anna Pigeon. I haven’t read the first three books, and I probably won’t.

Anna, a claustrophobic forest ranger (see, I told you she was outdoorsy) gets guilted into descending into the deep bowels of the earth in New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns as part of a rescue mission to free her injured friend.

“Not an accident” mutters said friend, and that plus a death make Anna’s sleuthing, well, necessary. Okay, see, that’s the trouble with mysteries: You have to suspend A LOT of belief.

No matter. I’m a mystery fan. Barr creates a nicely paced little novel here. Characters, including Anna, are better developed than your average commercial fiction usually sees. In fact, though written in the third person, the clipped tone—which the reader assumes mimics Anna’s personality—is quite no-nonsense, a tad rough-around-the-edges, and tom boyish. It grated on me, but it also pretty much worked.

Barr is a good enough writer—Blind Descent is, ultimately, a success. At times, she over-writes descriptions and drama, which removes the reader from the story and makes her aware that she’s reading, but I also have little patience for forced isn't-the-world-oh-so-beautiful writing.

Overall, and enjoyable, different-than-my-typical-book sort of read.