Liberty Falling - Hardcover

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 next for Anna? Is there a national park in Las Vegas? --Dick Adler

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 crumbliing, 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 young 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.