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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780380728275
ISBN number: 0380728273
Label: Avon
Manufacturer: Avon
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: March 01, 2000
Publishing house: Avon
Release Date: March 07, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 156743
Studio: Avon
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There is peril beneath the watchful eyes of the Lady...
When Anna Pigeon left New York City after her husband was killed, she hoped it would be forever. But now her sister Molly is clinging to life in an uptown hospital ICU, so Anna has reluctantly returned. Rooming with a friend and fellow park ranger in close quarters on Liberty Island---the small strip of land that is home to Lady Liberty---Anna spends her free time exploring the grand monument and the crumbling, overgrown, and eerie ruins in the unrestored sections of nearby Ellis Island. But the peace she seeks here is shattered when she finds herself among a crowd gathered at the Lady's base, staring at the broken body of a teenager who fell---or was pushed---to her death.
The reason behind the youthful girl's fatal plunge is not the only mystery alive on these historic sites---nor will hers be the only death. Hidden in a dangerous labyrinth of stone, glass, and steel are secrets Anna Pigeon is now compelled to uncover...and an insidious threat to herself and to others that could wreak havoc on a nation's proudest day.
There is peril beneath the watchful eyes of the Lady...There is peril beneath the watchful eyes of the Lady...
When Anna Pigeon left New York City after her husband was killed, she hoped it would be forever. But now her sister Molly is clinging to life in an uptown hospital ICU, so Anna has reluctantly returned. Rooming with a friend and fellow park ranger in close quarters on Liberty Island---the small strip of land that is home to Lady Liberty---Anna spends her free time exploring the grand monument and the crumbling, overgrown, and eerie ruins in the unrestored sections of nearby Ellis Island. But the peace she seeks here is shattered when she finds herself among a crowd gathered at the Lady's base, staring at the broken body of a teenager who fell---or was pushed---to her death.
The reason behind the youthful girl's fatal plunge is not the only mystery alive on these historic sites---nor will hers be the only death. Hidden in a dangerous labyrinth of stone, glass, and steel are secrets Anna Pigeon is now compelled to uncover...and an insidious threat to herself and to others that could wreak havoc on a nation's proudest day.
Amazon.com Review:
Imagine Nevada Barr's delight in discovering that there is actually a national park right smack in the middle of New York City--Gateways Park, which encompasses Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. She could continue her splendid series about park ranger Anna Pigeon and still do some serious shopping at Bendel's and Berghdorf's, the kind of stores you don't find in the New Mexico cave setting of Blind Descent (her last adventure). The ploy works: Barr is probably the only mystery writer who could see a natural environment under New York's slick and sleazy skin.
Anna is in Manhattan to look after her sister Molly, seriously ill with pneumonia and a kidney infection. Pigeon moves in with a ranger friend who has a place on Ellis Island. There's not much natural wildlife unless you count her feathered namesakes, but she still manages to find a lot to contemplate--especially the suspicious suicide of a teenage girl who leaps from Liberty's ledge, followed not long after by the security guard who tried to stop her. But Anna's snooping puts her own life in jeopardy. She survives several attacks and a near drowning--events as frightening as any of the fires, floods, and hurricanes from her past adventures. Barr neatly ties up her plot--ending with a brilliant chase scene across the waters from Manhattan to Liberty Island. What subsequent for Anna? Is there a national park in Las Vegas? --Dick Adler
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Rated by buyers 
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This one may be for readers who need to know every challenge in Anna Pigeon's career. Perhaps. This is not one of Barr's tightest plots. The wind-up takes awhile. The energy is flat at the beginning. Even after the initial fatality, events lull and sag for a few pages too long. Once energy gets moving and tension builds, however, it comes by the boat-load. "Liberty Falling" is good Anna time - tending to an ill sister, dancing around a "slightly used but still serviceable ex-boyfriend." It's terrific to see Anna with big city tourists, tunneling down in the subway (thinking of her New Mexico cave experience along the way) and walking the mean streets (at times) of New York. All along the way is the deep Pigeon cynicism and wry cracks. "Old bones had a litany of their own, reciting past injuries to any who would listen." "The apparition was either running away or low on ectoplasm," she observes at one point when sounds from a "ghost" grow faint. In this tale Anna sprouts a curious inability to come clean and be forthright with the people she encounters. And, of course, Anna questions why that is. She questions everything. She absorbs everything, as we all know, and Barr fans know what appears to be innocuous detail may very well surface later as the key to the unraveling the source of the danger.
At the core of "Liberty Falling" is a "nasty little story of hatred, fear and ignorance," as Pigeon observes. The ending vaults into high-speed action from sea to land. At one point, while she's soaked in the drink, Pigeon pauses long enough to observe that she isn't James Bond. Well, sure. That's what we like about Pigeon--she's grounded, earthy, self-deprecating and endlessly measuring her own inadequacies. "Liberty Falling" is rich with Pigeon insights. The "mystery" part of this book builds slowly but the ending packs a nifty wallop.
Rated by buyers 
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National Park Service agent Anna Pigeon would rather be anywhere other than New York City. However, her sister's critically failing health is more important than her need for wilderness solitude. Fortunately for Anna, Liberty and Ellis islands provide her with critical havens of peace when the crush of humanity overwhelms her. That is, until a fatal tragedy on the Statue of Liberty puts Anna on the scent of a conspiracy, one that becomes increasingly deadly the closer she gets to its center.
Barr does a good job of creating a patchwork quilt of seemingly unrelated clues for Anna to piece together. However, as likeable as Anna is, the clues fall a little too conveniently into her lap, and her investigative skills too often depend on lucky coincidence. This has the unfortunate effect of relieving any sense of tension, since it's always assured the winds of fortune will blow Anna's way when the leads start drying up. (On a minor note, Barr's unique fascination with anatomical references is distracting: for example, Anna getting a tingling in her duodenum.) On the positive side, though, Ellis and Liberty islands are fully realized and absolutely fascinating. By the end of the novel, the reader will probably feel as if he or she has been there. The non-suspense of the mystery is adequately redressed by the genuinely likeable Anna and a pleasant extended tour of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
Rated by buyers 
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This is the kind of book that you can skip-read every other page and not miss a thing.
Rated by buyers -
A family emergency brings Anna Pigeon rushing to New York. Molly, her sister, is gravely ill and in the hospital. Anna unrolls her "sleeping bag" with friends on Liberty Island and discovers accidents are murder. Determined to find answers Anna plunges into the melee ignoring warnings to stay clear.
LIBERTY FALLING is not Nevada Barr's best effort. The intrepid Anna is vulnerable as she haunts the halls of the hospital and fierce in her hunt for those that would destroy an American icon. Maybe it is the contrast of personalities that confuse the reader. But then Nevada Barr, always brings "arm chair travelers a bird's eye-view" of our unique national heritage.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.
Rated by buyers -
I had read all the earlier and some of the subsequent Anna Pigeon books, and this was the book I was waiting for -- not so much for the mystery as for the subplot.
FINally Anna and Molly have scenes together in person (although Molly is comatose in the very first one). FINally, a complicated, face-to-face denouement in the awkward triangle involving Anna and Molly and Frederick the Fed. (F the F is my favorite Nevada Barr character. I wish she had let him remain mysterious, wandering unexpectedly through every third book, sort of like Brenda Starr's Mystery Man. But this new side of FF was fun, too.) And I'm glad Barr gave Anna and Molly something really challenging to their sisterhood to work through.
As for the mystery itself -- OK enough. It was different for me. In the previous books, I was way ahead of Anna in figuring things out and had to watch her walk naively into the clutches of the very person who wanted her dead. In this book, Anna had it figured out and I was (mostly) clueless -- a nice change of formula.
I liked Anna's return to New York in real(?) time, rather than through memories. I work in an urban area where the National Park Service has a presence (Philadelphia), so it didn't seem odd to me. And I really connected to how out of place Anna feels there now.
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