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A Superior Death An Anna Pigeon Novel Nevada Barr Books

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A Superior Death An Anna Pigeon Novel Nevada Barr Books

Track of the Cat, which I reviewed earlier, was heavy on preaching. This novel is not. Such opinions are at a minimum. So at least that was an improvement. I did find a pattern in the path of the two stories. The first half is really slow, no real action, just a lot of details. An exciting event happens mid-novel. Then slow again until the very end. If you aren't patient, she will lose you. Most people reading this literary genre expect more action.

I enjoyed some of her unique metaphors, sprinkled here and there. For example, "she...let the silver of the evening sink into her soul", of boys illegally throwing frisbees in the park, she said that she would not cite them because she did not want to interfere in other people's practice of their religion. Or this: "The sky had cried itself out the night before and smiled down clear and warm." Along with short but vivid descriptions, naming species, of the vegetation and animals, to someone familiar with the region, which I am not, this would evoke a strong sense of reality, of connecting with the story, the events.

However, about 40 pages from the end, when the second action event began, she completely lost me as far as reality is concerned. Turning the heroine into Wonder Woman, doing what is probably physically impossible, especially given her lack of experience, is doggone jarring and disruptive of the story.

And it would be nice if the reader had a smidgen's chance of figuring out who the villain was before she sprung this on the reader out of the blue. The evidence needed to figure this out simply was not presented in context.


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A Superior Death An Anna Pigeon Novel Nevada Barr Books Reviews

Very interesting story, and a writing style reminiscent of Tony Hillerman. Really enjoyed the main character, and how the details of her work as a park ranger are woven into the tale.
Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon novels are just plain fun, replete with interesting characters, great scenery and of course Anna Pigeon's offbeat view of humanity. Barr's beloved protagonist is a national park ranger working on Lake Superior when the inevitable murder occurs and the investigation begins. Part of the fun is rambling about the park with Anna as she interviews witnesses, observes relationships and deals with park business from unruly visitors to inconvenient wildlife.

I read this book while recovering from a brief illness and it was just the thing--interesting but not overly demanding.
I am partial to crime novel series that feature female "detectives" (Kinsey Millhone, Aimee Leduc, Kay Scarpetta, Miss Marple. ...). Now I have to add Anna Pigeon to my favorites. (Somehow I read this book first, so I have to go back and read "The Track of the Cat".). The crime was unusual, the milieu was complex but well described, and the characters engaging and well drawn. I definitely plan to read the entire series. My only complaint was the frequent insertion of carriage returns in the middle of dialogs making it difficult to keep track of who is speaking. (I assume this a specific problem with the eBook versions.)
Rare is the writer who can I intersperse lyrical descriptions of a setting with droll mental commentaries by the protagonist. It it you are looking for such a writer, Nevada Barr is the one for you. Add that talent to an ability to save resolution of the mystery to almost the last word, and you have a fine read. This is that book. Enjoy.
I've read a number of Nevada Barr's 'Anna Pigeon' mysteries (crime novels? detective series?), but somehow I'd missed the earliest ones, so it was fun to find this on and be able to go back to the beginning of the character in this, the second of the series, "A Superior Death".

Even though the book itself, and therefore the necessary cultural details, are nearly 20 years old, I didn't find the actual story dated at all (and believe me, I'm among the first to complain if a story is dated and deadly because of that.)

It is a little odd that, in the 20 years that Anna Pigeon has been working for the National Parks Service, so many details of her life have changed yet she hasn't aged much (still in her 40s? Not quite sure.) From the early 1990s of this novel (A Superior Death) we've progressed from tape decks in cars, no such thing as a pc, printers still spitting out dot-matrix print-outs, etc. to thousands of songs available in your palm which can now be played through your car's speakers, ear buds, your home sound system, wherever! NASA-level personal computing in the same palm-sized device if you want it, wireless laser printers - things that Anna wouldn't have even found imaginable on Michigan's Isle Royal 'back in the day'. Yet Anna stays almost as young and active now (in the more current novels) as the day she was born of Ms. Barr's pen.

(Arthur Conan Doyle had it so much easier keeping his character consistent over a 40+ year life-span back around the LAST turn of the century! But, I digress...)

A Superior Death is a quirky crime novel set in a remote, normally beautiful and fairly placid part of northern Michigan. Ms Barr, through Anna, describes the area wonderfully, and you get a pretty good sense of being there, being on the great lake, walking the woods and sitting on the docks with Anna and her fellow Park Rangers. Oh, and the famous mosquitos!

I have to say, the cast of characters is particularly bizarre in this book, which might be a product of this being one of the early novels in the series. Her later novels usually have an odd character or two, but in A Superior Death at least half of the recurring cast has at least one major, outside-the-norm character trait or physical attribute, some of them fairly disturbing and others just a little weird or 'isch'. If I'd read this book first, I might have been turned off by this cultural side show, and if I was a resident of northern MI, I might be seriously offended at how my little pocket of the world was being portrayed.

However, since I've read so many other Anna Pigeon novels, I know that Ms. Barr has developed into a deft writer of mysteries involving a large cast of characters 'trapped; together in what should be a pleasant or fun situation but which has turned horrible for some reason. I think she's become sort of a modern American 'Agatha Christie' for outdoors enthusiasts.

Once you've gotten used to all of the odd characters, A Superior Death unfolds at a straightforward, steady pace. It starts fairly simply with the accidental discovery of a body by some tourists, and gets more and more complex until Anna and the killer are thrown together for a dramatic and physical denouement that is completely satisfying. There are plenty of hints and just as many red herrings along the way, and you'll find that you're going to suspect plenty of other people before you finally realize, along with Anna, who the real killer is.

(If you're a diver or familiar with diving in the Great Lakes, apparently the details in this story are pretty accurate, but with some dramatically bad choices or poor judgement thrown in. I'll have to take your word for it... I don't like either heights or depths, myself!)

If you're already a fan of Anna Pigeon, this is a fun book to pick up for a quick read. If you've never read her before, I don't think I'd tell you to start here - I like Ms. Barr's later writing of the character better. (Reading this was sort of like a big sister going home and finding some cute drawing that her younger sibling had done years ago in 5th grade. There's obvious promise in the work, but it's pretty naive.)
It had been a while since I’d read any of Barr’s Anna Pigeon books and realized I’d missed this 2nd book in the series. Now I remember my chief complaint Pigeon takes unbelievable risks and isn’t that smart about it, she survives unbelievable situations, and in some cases, the endings are too neatly put together. The redeeming factor in this novel was the interesting descriptions of the waterways and islands of Isle Royale National Park. It’s an interesting read, but I didn’t love it.
Track of the Cat, which I reviewed earlier, was heavy on preaching. This novel is not. Such opinions are at a minimum. So at least that was an improvement. I did find a pattern in the path of the two stories. The first half is really slow, no real action, just a lot of details. An exciting event happens mid-novel. Then slow again until the very end. If you aren't patient, she will lose you. Most people reading this literary genre expect more action.

I enjoyed some of her unique metaphors, sprinkled here and there. For example, "she...let the silver of the evening sink into her soul", of boys illegally throwing frisbees in the park, she said that she would not cite them because she did not want to interfere in other people's practice of their religion. Or this "The sky had cried itself out the night before and smiled down clear and warm." Along with short but vivid descriptions, naming species, of the vegetation and animals, to someone familiar with the region, which I am not, this would evoke a strong sense of reality, of connecting with the story, the events.

However, about 40 pages from the end, when the second action event began, she completely lost me as far as reality is concerned. Turning the heroine into Wonder Woman, doing what is probably physically impossible, especially given her lack of experience, is doggone jarring and disruptive of the story.

And it would be nice if the reader had a smidgen's chance of figuring out who the villain was before she sprung this on the reader out of the blue. The evidence needed to figure this out simply was not presented in context.