(2005)Pretty good tale about Anna Pidgeon being stationed at Estes Park. Tries to find missing young girls. Becomes very disturbing at end when child abuse is vividly described.

Religious fanaticism, oppression of women, social & familial conditioning and the re-introduction of predators into areas to preserve nature's balance are the themes of Hard Truth. A dark novel. ( )

Hard Truth (2005) (Anna Pigeon #13) by Nevada Barr. Nevada Barr’s tough as an oak detective/national park ranger Anna Pigeon is back, just now working in the Rocky Mountain National Park. She leaves her new husband behind in Mississippi to take a promotion to the Rockies. Her introduction to the park is a catch-up history of the search for three missing girls. A fundamentalist church group was doing a spiritual ministry for several days in the park. A young preacher and another were leading the group of teen and tween girls when most returned to their church.
The girls were separated from the youth minister almost a month before and the search has petered out when Anna arrives. Then two of the girls wander into the camp of a retired doctor and her wheelchair bound niece named Heath. They manage to calm the traumatized pair until the park rangers and EMTs can be notified.
Thus begins Anna’s investigation. As you might know from her past adventures, Anna is going to become a detective and work on solving this case. Anna Pigeon is one of the better characters in the role of sleuth, doing what is necessary to find the truth and stop the evil. And there is plenty of evil here. A sociopath is stalking the park with the intent of creating others in it’s image.
Heath, only recently confined to the wheelchair after a horrible ice climbing accident, is faced with her own troubles, hating the loss of her rock/ice climbing lifestyle. She is fighting all her own demons and is compelled to try and help the two girls who have escaped the clutches of evil only to go back to the clutches of their church.
This is yet another look inside the minds of the main characters, a fascinating study of one person trying to find herself in a new world while another is trying to distort that same world for their own maniacal ends. Anna, as usual, gets abused along the way, but no more or less than a male character in the same situation. I’m not keen on the female as abuse victim, but she does give as well as she gets. I do feel bad for the girls,
This is yet another tour into our friendly, safe National Park system. Hard Truth is something of a guidebook, just like all the Anna Pigeon novels. I like finding the novel that corresponds with my next wildlife outing as not only is it going to be a good read but will offer information about the park that is veery entertaining and informative.
And I really liked Ms. Barr’s book featuring the Dry Tortugas, another favorite. ( )

Not the worst Anna Pigeon, but certainly not the best. Anna sleuthing and sleuthing and sleuthing around in the dark for no really good reason other than to be sleuthing, but Nevada Barr sums it up best:

"Worse: a fool, a mark, a victim."

Fool and mark are correct, but she's a victim of her own idiocy in this book.

"...through her blind dim-wittedness she'd gotten them into this mess."

"Mess" is a bit of an understatement; kind of like saying detonating an atomic bomb leaves a bit of a mess, a tiny bit of destruction.

The Pigeon doesn't have to be a superhero, but a complete and total nitwit is seriously unbecoming. Crimes shouldn't be solved by dumb luck alone; there should be at least a modicum of intelligence behind the crime fighting.

Not to give too much away, but everyone is a suspect except, you know, the actual suspect.

There was a lot going on in this book, and ultimately it was way too much. Interesting having a paraplegic character, and how she interacted with her newfound life in a wheelchair as well as the immediate hurdles. About a third of the way through, I thought that the book took a turn for the better with the introduction of the "cherry cordial," but my newfound appreciation and hope for better only lasted a few pages.

Let's just say that when an author decides that the main character is going to bust into a gathering of mob bosses or the main hideout of a drug cartel without any backup or telling anyone where they are going or without any weapons whatsoever (and for some unknown reason many, many writers do), because the good guy or gal is so damn good, what could possible go wrong... well, except for every last thing. In those cases (again way, way, way too many), my interest in said story becomes challenged; I lose interest, and ultimately I cannot vouch for the book in the end. Hard Truth is that story. It's an okay read if you are an Anna Pigeon fan, but by the end I had to admit that it was really lame. ( )

This is the first book by this author for me. I found it to be hard to enjoy reading. It is so full of evil and sadistic content. Harm to children, harm to animals. It is a story set in the Rocky Mountain National Park. It features a cult that is a spin off of the Mormons and a disabled ex climber. I read this for the random challenge, December 2021. I doubt that I will read anymore books by Nevada Barr. I did not like her writing style and felt that she was "trying" to hard and I did not like some of her research. Such as saying an OB GYN doctor had taken care of many children. OB GYN take care of women and their problems and do not care for the children that they delivered. That was not the only thing I found jarring. ( )