Ill Wind [Audio Cassette]

Nevada Barr (Author), Barbara Rosenblat (Narrator)

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Recorded Books; Unabridged edition
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0788729322
• ISBN-13: 978-0788729324
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,876,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nevada was born in the small western town of Yerington, Nevada and raised on a mountain airport in the Sierras. Both her parents were pilots and mechanics and her sister, Molly, continued the tradition by becoming a pilot for USAir.
Pushed out of the nest, Nevada fell into the theatre, receiving her BA in speech and drama and her MFA in Acting before making the pilgrimage to New York City, then Minneapolis, MN. For eighteen years she worked on stage, in commercials, industrial training films and did voice-overs for radio. During this time she became interested in the environmental movement and began working in the National Parks during the summers -- Isle Royale in Michigan, Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, Mesa Verde in Colorado, and then on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.
Woven throughout these seemingly disparate careers was the written word. Nevada wrote and presented campfire stories, taught storytelling and was a travel writer and restaurant critic. Her first novel, Bitterweet was published in 1983. The Anna Pigeon series, featuring a female park ranger as the protagonist, started when she married her love of writing with her love of the wilderness, the summer she worked in west Texas. The first book, Track of the Cat, was brought to light in 1993 and won both the Agatha and Anthony awards for best first mystery. The series was well received and A Superior Death, loosely based on Nevada's experiences as a boat patrol ranger on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, was published in 1994. In 1995 Ill Wind came out. It was set in Mesa Verde, Colorado where Nevada worked as a law enforcement ranger for two seasons.
The rest is, shall we say, HISTORY! Nevada's books and accomplishments have become numerous and the presses continue to roll, so in the interest of NOT having to update this page, books, awards, status on the New York Times Best Seller List -- and more -- will be enumerated with the relevant books else where on this website.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beware a breath of fresh air..., June 24, 2000

By 

Victoria Tarrani "writer, editor, artist, des... (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ill Wind (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (Paperback)

Anna Pigeon, is now at home in Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, but murder also invades the Anasazi ruins. Why do some of the tourists die while viewing the caves? This becomes a significant question when a child dies; the previous deaths were attributed to natural circumstance. The value of medical training for a park ranger is detailed in giving aid to these unfortunate visitors.

Death continues to visit this land where the question of "what happened to the Anasazi" is as ingrained to archaeologists in the real world as it is in the world of Anna Pigeon. It is clear that Nevada Barr has studied the ancient Native American history and searched for answers to this question. Is not a journey into history, but an adventure into murder and money.

Nevada Barr excels in creating believable characters, situations and solutions.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best So Far, June 14, 2002

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ill Wind (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (Paperback)

Nevada Barr really hit her stride in Ill Wind, the third in her wonderful Anna Pigeon series.

In this tale, park ranger Anna is stationed at Colorado's Mesa Verde park, where the famous cliff dwellings draw tourists from all over the world. As in her other two books, Barr makes the reader experience the site. It is her great gift--reading about the kivas and mesas and the haunting spirits of the primitive Anasazi, who originally constructed the mesas, I felt I was there. I could feel the heat of the air, smell the surrounding vegetation, feel the sandstone. And, along with Anna, who is becoming more likeable with every book, I worried about seemingly nefarious activites in the park--of of which ends in the death of a fellow ranger. Anna knows the death is not accidental, but try as she might, she cannot put together the increasingly strange and seemingly unrelated clues.

Along comes "Fred the Fed," whom we met the last book. He and Anna team up to solve the mystery, and the interplay between them is a true delight.

I find this series a true delight as well; the concept of a park ranger as law-enforcement detective is so different, and so perfect, as are the descriptions of the incredible national parks. I am getting a real education, here! This is the perfect book to take to the beachl or the pool or the park--easy, fun, gently suspenseful, and perfect.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great setting, weak villain, August 21, 2001

By 

Richard A. Lovett (West Coast, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ill Wind (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (Paperback)

Mesa Verde is fun. Anna Pigeon is a fun character, even if she's a bit grumpy. Her FBI counterpart is even more fun-I liked him the moment he showed up in "A Superior Death," even if Anna then found him to be a bit of a buffoon. But somehow the pieces of this story don't come together as well as they do in the best Anna Pigeon mysteries, such as "Firestorm," "A Superior Death," "Blind Descent," and "Deep South." Maybe Barr was still learning her art when she wrote this one; the problem is that the villain isn't as well developed as the setting or the Anna Pigeon character (she had the same problem, in fact, in her first book, "Track of the Cat"). Anna, the park, the FBI guy, even her long-distance relationship with her sister Molly-all of these upstage the plot that's supposed to bind them together, producing the odd result of a book that's undercut by its greatest strengths. Still, there's no such thing as a bad Anna Pigeon book: just varying degrees of good. This one's at the lower end of the range.