Ranger Anna Pigeon, Nevada Barr's series heroine (High Country, Flashback), meets her match in this engrossing new thriller set in Rocky Mountain National Park. Heath Jarrod is a climber now confined to a wheelchair after an accident that left her crippled, angry and depressed: "For a few months after the fall, she'd played Christopher Reeve, pretending to be as optimistic, as cheerful, but she was a lousy actor and ... she'd rung down the curtain. The first of many curtains." But there's a second act in her future that begins when two terrified, half-naked little girls stumble out of the woods and into Heath's "handicamp"--they've been missing for weeks, but are too traumatized to tell Heath and then Anna where they've been, or what happened to the third girl who disappeared with them. Beth, the younger, wins Heath's heart; with Anna, she pursues an investigation that leads to a bizarre, quasi-religious cult that's set up its headquarters just outside the park's boundaries, and the youth group leader who'd taken the girls into the wilderness and returned without them. Is Robert Proffit the gentle, spiritual man Anna's seasonal law enforcement agent Rita Perry thinks he is, or a twisted rapist and probable killer whose prayers for the innocent girls in his charge mask his evil nature?

The mysteries keep piling on, as one gruesome discovery leads to another, and Heath begins to realize that even though she's lost the use of her legs, the same tenacity that made her one of the world's leading mountaineers has even more rewarding summits to achieve. Barr builds the suspense skillfully and drives the narrative to a bloody, violent, and unexpected conclusion in one of her best mysteries to date. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
In Barr's taut 13th thriller to feature Anna Pigeon (after 2004's High Country), the 50-ish National Park Service ranger leaves her new husband, Paul, back in Mississippi, to assume a new post in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, where she encounters a serial killer and a strong, determined woman, Heath Jarrod, much like herself. Heath, a former ice climber now confined to a wheelchair after a near-fatal fall, feels depressed, isolated and helpless. She's camping in the national park with her physician, who's also her aunt, when a pair of battered young girls, two of three missing from a nearby religious retreat, appear at the campsite. Heath and Anna at first dislike one another, but join forces to break the silence enforced by the retreat's domineering head and discover why the youngsters vanished, who took them, where they were and what happened to the third girl. Barr skillfully weaves contemporary issues of parental responsibility, religious and political separatism, and sexual abuse into her harrowing story. She carefully sets the scene in the first part of the book, which builds to a spectacular climax that pits Anna against evil incarnate. Noted for her precise plotting and atmospheric descriptions of nature, Barr again proves her skill in putting believable characters in peril against a backdrop of breathtaking scenery. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Ranger Anna Pigeon may be happily married, but she is not willing to pass up an opportunity to advance her career. Rocky Mountain National Park is her new destination, and no sooner does she set foot in the park than she finds herself smack in the middle of a bizarre mystery: two young teen girls who have been missing for weeks reappear. They refuse to talk about their ordeal, and they claim to know nothing about the third girl who vanished with them. Emotionally wrecked Heath Jarrod, who recently lost the use of her legs in a climbing accident, seems to be the only person able to connect with the children, especially the youngest, Beth. As Anna investigates, Heath keeps an informal eye on the kids and in so doing finds new purpose in her life. The villain here is more sadistic than many of the scoundrels Pigeon encountered in previous novels, as vividly demonstrated in the final chapters, but Barr nicely balances the brutality with a thoughtful portrayal of Heath's struggle to rethink herself and Anna's own indomitable spirit and bravery. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Just three days after her wedding to Sheriff Paul Davidson, Anna Pigeon moves from Mississippi to Colorado to assume her new post as district ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park, where three girls have disappeared during a religious retreat. Two of the children reappear a month later, clad only in filthy underwear and claiming to remember nothing of the intervening weeks. The girls are frightened and traumatized, but they forge a bond with the pair of campers who discover them - a wheelchair-bound paraplegic and her elderly aunt.

With the reappearance of the children comes an odd and unsettling presence in the park, a sense of disembodied evil and unspeakable terrors: small animals are mercilessly slaughtered, and a sinister force seems to still control the girls. As Anna investigates, she finds herself caught up in the machinations of a paranoid religious sect bent on protecting their secrets and keeping the girls sequestered from law enforcement and psychiatric help.

Following the trail of the many suspects, especially that of the cult’s intense youth-group leader, Anna comes to find the force against which the children’s minds have been broken. This evil has the eyes of a visionary and the soul of the devil. Anna will discover the truth - even if it kills her.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Just three days after her wedding to Sheriff Paul Davidson, Anna Pigeon moves from Mississippi to Colorado to assume her new post as district ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park, where three young girls have disappeared during a religious retreat. Two of the children emerge a month later, clad only in filthy underwear and claiming to remember nothing of the intervening weeks. The girls are traumatized but forge a bond with the pair of campers who discovered them - a wheelchair-bound paraplegic and her elderly aunt.

With the reappearance of the children comes an odd and unsettling presence in the park, a sense of disembodied evil and unspeakable terror: small animals are mercilessly slaughtered and a sinister force seems to still control the girls. As Anna investigates, she finds herself caught up in the machinations of a paranoid religious sect determined to keep their secrets and the girls sequestered from law enforcement and psychiatric help.

Following the trails of the many suspects, especially that of the cult's intense youth group leader, Anna discovers the force which has destroyed the children's minds. Here in the park, evil has the eyes of a visionary and the soul of the devil. Anna will discover the truth-even if it kills her.

Author Bio: Nevada Barr is the award-winning author of twelve previous Anna Pigeon mysteries, including the New York Times bestseller High Country.

FROM THE CRITICS

Marilyn Stasio - The New York Times

has real feeling for creatures who live in the wild, especially women who can't be tamed.

Publishers Weekly

In Barr's taut 13th thriller to feature Anna Pigeon (after 2004's High Country), the 50-ish National Park Service ranger leaves her new husband, Paul, back in Mississippi, to assume a new post in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, where she encounters a serial killer and a strong, determined woman, Heath Jarrod, much like herself. Heath, a former ice climber now confined to a wheelchair after a near-fatal fall, feels depressed, isolated and helpless. She's camping in the national park with her physician, who's also her aunt, when a pair of battered young girls, two of three missing from a nearby religious retreat, appear at the campsite. Heath and Anna at first dislike one another, but join forces to break the silence enforced by the retreat's domineering head and discover why the youngsters vanished, who took them, where they were and what happened to the third girl. Barr skillfully weaves contemporary issues of parental responsibility, religious and political separatism, and sexual abuse into her harrowing story. She carefully sets the scene in the first part of the book, which builds to a spectacular climax that pits Anna against evil incarnate. Noted for her precise plotting and atmospheric descriptions of nature, Barr again proves her skill in putting believable characters in peril against a backdrop of breathtaking scenery. Agent, Dominick Abel. National author tour. (Mar. 24) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A massive search ensues when teenage girls disappear from a church group camping trip in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. Six weeks later, two of the girls emerge, half-naked and traumatized, raising the question, "Where's the third girl?" Two women, park ranger Anna Pigeon and paraplegic camper Heath Jarrod, plunge into the renewed case. The girls profess amnesia, but whisper enough to put Robert Proffit, their youth group leader, under suspicion. They trust Heath and beg her to accompany them home to a remote, sinister-feeling, religious outpost. Meanwhile, Anna spends a night pinned under rocks after being pushed over a cliff by Robert, whose backpack just happens to be leaking fresh blood. Once freed, Anna can't gauge her staff's credibility, and her backcountry hunt becomes fiercely intense when a suspect turns up dead. The women's parallel stories unfold, finally intersecting in a terrifying conclusion. Although Barr's Anna Pigeon series (High Country) have set the standard for outdoor mysteries, her latest is an ambitous, if heavy-handed, attempt to do more; it's as laden with psychological issues (pedophilia, brainwashing) as any urban mystery. Still, fans will want it. For most mystery collections. Barr lives in Clinton, MS. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 12/04.]-Teresa L. Jacobsen, Santa Monica P.L., CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews