Barr's writing just keeps getting better and better. Her character, Anna Pidgeon, gets more and more complex. She takes her usual beating, and then some, in this adventure. But listen to a description of the attraction in a relationship: "Charles came along with his literary allusions and superb table manners. [He] saw it as a kind of Scarlett/Ashley thing." Or this, as a description of one of the main characters: "Even when she was a tiny little thing she never wanted to play at being a princess. She always played at being queen." Or this nature description: "The sky was huge and deep, on the horizon towers of cumulonimbus clouds rose in great columns exploring every shade of white." There's no shortage of side stories going on either. There's the one about the longhorn cow, named Easter, who got stranded on a rim of land above the Rio Grande and a rescue is attempted by the rafting crew - Anna, her husband, their guide and fellow rafters; and the politically ambitious lady mayor; and Anna's own struggle to understand her feelings after her previous traumatic adventure in Isle Royale.
Page 309 references the title: "When every bell rang a false note, one had to move on, or cross from borderline to genuine parnoid."
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