Published in 2012, The Rope is the 17th Anna Pigeon novel from Nevada Barr. It is the first Nevada Barr novel that I have read, it purports to be the beginning of the Anna Pigeon stories. “It all begins here”, it says on the cover. It’s an interesting beginning.

It's 1995. The story begins at a marina called ‘Dangling Rope’ at the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area with National Park Service personnel hanging around at the end of a work-day. Anna Pigeon is missing from the scene and the reason why she is missing is a mystery. She is mentioned as an odd woman wearing black and saying little.

Anna appears in Chapter 2 at the bottom of a naturally carved ‘solution hole’ in the rocks, naked and with no memory in her fuzz encrusted brain of how she got there, how long she’s been there, or exactly where ‘there’ is. Barr keeps Anna there longer than most readers would feel comfortable with as Anna struggles to figure out her situation and how to escape from it. She cleverly makes use of every option that the situation offers.

Gradually the reader is made aware of Anna’s backstory as Barr shifts the point of view in and out of Anna’s brain as well as the brains of other park employees.

The park employee characters described in the opening chapter are not consistent throughout the rest of the book. A number of traumatic and potentially deadly episodes are strung together to keep the story moving. Barr does a wonderful job of describing the incredible landscapes around Lake Powell and the mysteries of the history of the land that existed before it was all flooded by the creation of the Glen Canyon Dam.

The Rope is a skillful and entertaining tale in the spirit of Paul Doiron and William Kent Krueger.