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3.0 out of 5 stars
Anna and New York Just Don't Mix, Aug 8 2002
Intrepid park ranger Anna Pigeon is out of her milieu in this book, and the result is less than stellar.Anna's beloved sister Molly has fallen dangerously ill, and Anna has rushed to her side. Long and boring stints in the ICU (for both Anna and the reader) are interspersed with acute anxiety attacks, and a pressing need for space. Liberty Island, which is actually one of three islands, is--surprise--a national park, and Anna bunks with a ranger friend rather than stay at Molly's tony apartment in Manhattan. Of course, Anna being Anna, she stumbles onto some nefarious doings, not only in Lady Liberty herself, but in the decayed buildings of Ellis Island. Her snooping is not taken well by the resident staff--to the point where her life may be in danger. I don't know why I found the detailed descriptions of the inner workings of the Statue of Liberty, and the endless visits to the decaying buildings of Ellis Island, so boring. Linda Fairstein described much the same thing in one of her books, and it slowed her plot considerably, in my opinion. Perhaps it was this sense of deja vu that annoyed me so much in "Liberty Falling."
At any rate, I found the going very slow, to the point where I kept forgetting which character was which. Added to the slow pace of the mystery is the intensely annoying courtship of Anna's sister by geeky G-man Frederick Stanton, who has become increasingly hard to take in each successive book. Why the fabulous Molly would respond to Stanton, even in her half-dead state, is beyond me. Anna has some problems with it as well, but for different reasons, as loyal readers of this series know. A half-baked "romance" between Anna and Molly's doctor adds nothing to the plot for most of the book, except for the chance to "view" Anna in a sexy dress and high heels (a first). The mystery does come, at last, to a satisfying conclusion, but not soon enough. For devotees of the Anna Pigeon series, this book provides a necessary link in the ongoing story of Anna's life. For casual readers, this is one to skip. It falls far short of the previous six books in the series.
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