The Rope

Written by Nevada Barr

Narrated by Joyce Bean

Anna Pigeon has been a ranger with the National Park Service for many years, but she had a very different life before tragedy sent her west seeking something new. Now Nevada Barr finally tells the previously untold story of Anna’s first foray into the wild, and the case that helped shape her into the ranger she became.

Thirty-five years old, fresh off the bus from New York City, and nursing a shattered heart, Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. On her day off, she goes hiking into the park never to return. Her co-workers think she’s simply moved on—her cabin is cleaned out and her things gone. Anna herself wakes up, trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without supplies and no clear memory of how she got into this situation.

As she slowly pieces together her memory, it soon becomes clear that someone has trapped her there, in an inescapable prison, and that no one knows that she is even missing. Plunged into a landscape and a plot she is unfit and untrained to handle, Anna Pigeon must muster the courage, strength, and will to live that she didn’t even know she still possessed in order to survive, outwit, and triumph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Aug 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469212067

Nevada Barr

NEVADA BARR is a novelist, actor, and artist best known for her New York Times bestselling, award-winning mystery series featuring Anna Pigeon. A former National Park Service Ranger, she currently lives with her husband in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Reviews for The Rope

[rbeffa_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not much of a fan of crime fiction or murder mysteries that live on the dark side of life, so I rarely read them. This one isn't dark dark but it is gritty in ways I'd prefer not to read.Fans of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series will want to read this one. Here we get the backstory of Anna when she first started work for the parks service as a temp. I've read several of the novels in the series, including the first one Track of the Cat. I stopped reading them 8 or 9 years ago partly because the stories are grittier than I prefer to read. This one is no exception. The big plus for me is the detail we get about various National Parks and recreation areas across the country. That will probably pull me back again sometime for a later read of another book in the series.This story dragged a bit too long at the beginning so I found myself looking ahead constantly and then going back to where I was. That isn't a good sign. The story played out a little strange and the odd puppy love obsession in here was a bit overdone. Read in 2017

[ccayne_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love Nevada Barr audios. The plots are gripping and I always learn something about the National Park where the story is set. Very satisfying.

[jennybeast · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Anna Pigeon’s first adventure, before she joined the park service, before she grew into the tough-as-nails park ranger we love to follow. In some ways, it makes the book very strange, because it’s not the character we know, or at least, not yet. It’s certainly gripping, though.

[dlg4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

the start of Anna Pigeon's career as a National Park ranger

[jamespurcell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anna before she becomes a ranger; serving as a summer temp and brach cleaner. Dark but typical as lots of bad things happen before she resolves the mystery.

[empressreece · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's been a long time since I read this book but I have read the entire series, up until the most current book and I really like it. I love how the series is set outdoors in the different parks. If you like C.J. Box, then you'll like Barr too.

[untraveller · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

N.B. certainly has a following, but I have never been able to ascertain why. Her plots, her style, her settings all seem forced. I have read about five of her books, all of which have been eminently forgettable. I've even listened to audio tapes trying to figure out reasons for her popularity. None of it makes much sense to me and, fortunately, to those I hang with. To each his own....but Nevada Barr is not the National Park Service....at least not in any reasonable form I'm familiar with. As mystery type fiction she rates low as well. None of her scenarios good happen in most anybody's normal world. When coincidence piles on coincidence, the result is escapist trash which I find most of her work to be. That said, this was easily her best book and a book I read to kill a few waking moments before a trip to Turkey.

[casabooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Have collected most of this series - set in various National Parks.
This is a later book - revisiting the first experience of the heroine.
Always glad to read the book that set the formation of the character - before I read the series.
Thus, glad hadn't read any of the previous books before this one.
Bit of a gory-story, but very interesting in setting the scenes and workings within the park.

[cyderry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having read all the previous installments of the Anna Pigeon series, looking back at how Anna became the amazing Park Ranger she is and what motivated her actions, made for an interesting and compelling adventure to add to her repertoire.Anna has lost the love of her life and leaves New York to escape and nurse her injured spirit. She signs up as a temporary staff for the park rangers however, while hiking on her day off she sees a group of young men raping a girl. Rushing in knocks Anna for a loop for the next time she is conscious, she finds herself naked in a dry well.How she escapes is a testament to her own ingenuity and the aftermath is startling as well.Somehow I forgot how much I like Anna Pigeon - her strength of spirit as well as determination not to give in when threatened by others.

[drled_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you don’t know that this is a prequel, then the book is very confusing. Once across the timeline barrier, this was a pretty good ‘who done it’. There was a fairly perplexing question throughout as to who was going to end up the villain of this story. As will most of Barr's tales, this one left me wanting to visit this particular National Park.

[bgknighton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very enjoyable entry in the series. Always wondered exactly what happened to Zack and how Anna got started in the Service. She may start out appearing weak, but her inner strength soon shows up. A villainous villain, a couple of dupes, overall very nice read.

[herbcat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This "prequel" to the Anna Pigeon National Park Mystery series is full of suspense, fear, and mystery. This time, Anna is the one who requires rescue, although she knows something of the dead body she finds, but the dead body is not really as central as Anna's finding herself trapped, nude, and without supplies at the bottom of a deep hole.

[pgbirdlet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Exciting, sometimes too exciting. I liked it better than Borderline, but Barr is always interesting. Borrowed from a friend.

[queensowntalia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The latest Anna Pigeon mystery takes readers back to her first ranger job, not long after her husband's death. Unsurprisingly, then, this installment reads like more of a psychological thriller than the previous books have been. Not only is Anna still struggling with the loss of her husband, but she undergoes another intense trauma that shakes her very soul. There is enough action, interspersed here and there, to keep it gripping, and Barr introduces a pretty interesting, well-fleshed out set of characters, including a deliciously morally ambiguous person who even at the end there's some doubt about. And a baby skunk!Overall an engaging read, with, as usual, plenty of nature thrown into the mix.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed this book, which helps explain the tough person Anna is today. Starts out with a terrific bang, and doesn't let up with many references to what brought Anna to where she is today.

[khiemstra631 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Nevada Barr has done it again and written another spine-tingler of a book in which Anna Pigeon moves from one life-threatening situation to another. This book has a little different twist to it, however, as it is set in the past immediately following the death of Anna's first husband, Zach. Anna is spending the summer as temporary park help at Powell Lake. When the book opens, Anna is naked and imprisoned in a "jar", which is a hole in the rocks. She has a canteen of drugged water and a corpse to keep her company. Of course, it's obvious to the reader that Anna survives all of this since most will have read her later adventures as Ranger Anna. Nonetheless, the suspense is palpable throughout because it is never quite clear who the perpetrators of the evils against Anna is. This reader thought she had it all figured out and still managed to be surprised by the resolution of the story. This one is not to be missed by fans of Anna Pigeon and her many adventures.