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A Superior Death (An Anna Pigeon Novel)
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Manufacturer: Berkley
Author: Nevada Barr
Publisher: Berkley
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Our Price: $7.99
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Berkley
Author: Nevada Barr
Publisher: Berkley
Average Customer Rating:
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A Superior Death (An Anna Pigeon Novel) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780425194713
ISBN: 042519471X
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2003-09-02
Publisher: Berkley
Product Release Date: 2003-09-02
Studio: Berkley
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780425194713
ISBN: 042519471X
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2003-09-02
Publisher: Berkley
Product Release Date: 2003-09-02
Studio: Berkley
Editorial Review of A Superior Death (An Anna Pigeon Novel)
Below the frigid waters of Lake Superior lies a sunken 1927 wreck-the final resting place of its five victims. But when divers surface with a tale of seeing a sixth body, Anna Pigeon must break the Great Lake's grip on its icy secrets...
Customer Reviews of A Superior Death (An Anna Pigeon Novel)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: COULD THIS EVER REALLY HAPPEN?
Review: Having read some of these Anna Pigeon mysteries, this was not my favorite. The people were all just too 'messed up'. Is no one normal in the Park System? Anna herself is quite a dame. A boozer with personal problems, she turns into Superwoman! Actually, she's pretty stupid. As quoted from the book, "Anna, you've painted yourself into a corner this time." Just like in a gothic novel or a cheap horror picure, the woman goes at it alone, walks into the most transparent danger, and then escapes with a few scratches. She should be dead! And of course, friends are always just around the corner as they come to the rescue in the nick of time - oh brother! Why didn't she use her head and the technology available - or the FBI? If someone is leaving an island, there are only so many ports they are going to. Radio ahead, Anna. My greatest gripe is the way this lover of Texas takes to the Great Lakes. She dives and handles all types of water craft like a pro. She faces the storms, docks, leaps from boat to boat, hangs off the gunwalls, and does a tie-on flawlessly. Tell me that's not fantasy. I have trouble imagining how her solo boating ventures could happen without mishap. Having spent time on Superior, I can tell you that it is BIG and DANGEROUS. The author makes that point, but the characters are a little disrespectful of that fact as they boat at night, cruise in the fog, etc. In real life, no one plays around with Lady Superior and wins - not even Anna.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Lake Superior gives up some secrets
Review: "Superior Death" by Nevada Barr, ©1994
Ms. Barr always writes a good story, placed in various national parks. These are not the normal parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite, but little traveled ones that get their share of visitors, but not a lot of press. Usually she has a map included, this is the first that did not have one.
The story was sad, people got killed and abused, but really easy to read and interesting. Her stories are more on the lines of suspense/mystery, rather then just mystery, and emphasis on the suspense. This does get a bit expectable and, while exciting, you know she will get away and fight another day.
It is also another example of the sleuth who is not a detective. I have read one of a state game warden and a caterer, as well as this national park ranger.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Underwater Terror
Review: If you have a major fear of water, don't go near Nevada Barr's A SUPERIOR DEATH. The seconded of the Anna Pigeon takes you to the murky bottom of Lake Superior in a thriller guaranteed to rattle your bones. Anna has been transferred from the dry Texas hill county to a little known national park on the shores of our largest fresh water lake with murder following her.
The park people are sceptical of her and her innate curiosity that demands a personal exploration of a famous shipwreck. Mystery--suspense--thrills in unusual environments are becoming a trademark for Ms. Barr.
Don't miss a page of the excellent story.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An Inferior Novel
Review: One of the many problems from which this book suffers is a lack of regional and cultural context. As someone who has lived in the Keweenaw Peninsula, I was looking for descriptions or insights the author might offer regarding the area and its people, but these were conspicuously lacking. Obviously, the author had spent some time in the park, but her portrayal was such that Isle Royale seemed to be surrounded by cardboard cut-out locales. Even though Houghton (the location of the park headquarters) is visited, referenced in numerous ways, and even made the location of a lesbian community of interest to sorting out the sexual preferences of various characters, it remains a cipher -- a nearby blank canvas upon which the author can paint some plot conveniences, but nothing else. Readers will learn more about New York City from this book than they will about western Upper Michigan. Likewise, the people and culture of the Keweenaw Peninsula are pretty much absent from the book, unless one counts the moment where a character -- written sympathetically at that point -- compliments the protagonist for having a capacity for introspection she finds absent in those from the Upper Peninsula.
A second major flaw is the over-use of convenient details and timing. So many coincidences just happen to occur during the short period of time covered by the book that the word "implausible" seems inadequate. I realize this is fiction, but even science fiction writers have recognized for decades that good writing demands reasonable limits upon what an author can do within a particular genre or universe. A novel consciously written and marketed as an action thriller, for example, may stretch credibility in order to move from one over-the-top sequence to another, but since that is the point of the exercise, a reader can buy the book expecting to accept the story on its own terms. This was not the case with "A Superior Death", which I purchased expecting to find a mystery novel set on Isle Royale, not a tale that incorporated so many conveniences as to depart the mystery genre entirely and gravitate into Matthew Reilly territory.
I will describe the following examples in fairly generic language, for the sake of those who still want to read the book. A) One of the most obvious cases of laughably far-fetched convenience is the coincidence by which the protagonist catches on to the killer. B) Two characters possessing a crucial teddy bear originally appeared to have been deliberately written as odd for the purpose of making them interesting, yet after a couple of ludicrous coincidences by which the protagonist is saved, it became obvious that their oddity was also the author's cover for not having to come up with a rational explanation for the series of events. C) A character accidentally chokes to death while engaged in an activity that was, for the character, fairly routine; furthermore, this death was not related to the flow of the story, but conveniently occurred at the end of the book in order to provide a warped kind of closure (since, as other characters make unsubtly clear, the reader was being manipulated into being satisfied with this person's death). D) A missing-person subplot is stretched across the entire length of the book -- long after the official disinterest in locating her was plausibly sustainable, particularly given that the murder victim's wife claimed she hadn't initially reported her husband's disappearance because she thought he had gone to be with the other woman in question.
The identity of the killer wasn't too hard to guess, simply because there was no other justification for the prominence of the person in the story, and the author's attempts to cause the reader to consider other suspects were so ham-handed, the discerning reader is unlikely to take the blind alleys seriously. One of those dead-ends involved two diving partners of the murder victim; the three of them refer to themselves as the Three Musketeers. The problem is that the murder victim was nicknamed after d'Artagnan, who was not one of the Three Musketeers. Yet the author uses this very identification to allow the protagonist to link a knife to the dead man due to the initials "d'A". Clearly, if the author had identified the victim with the actual name of one of the Three Musketeers (Athos, Porthos, and Aramis), any mark on the knife would probably have been either less distinctive or more obvious, depending on the number of letters used in the inscription. So, in order to artificially create a mystery-within-a-mystery, the author has to wrongly identify d'Artagnan as one of the Three Musketeers, and then have at least four characters (the dead man and his partners, as well as the protagonist) consistently follow the same mistake. That's as ludicrous as writing a mystery about a murdered sports buff in which one of the puzzles requires the deceased, his friends, and the detectives to brazenly and consistently identify a famous football player with the wrong team.
Finally, while the author offered some details regarding the underwater condition of the Kamloops shipwreck, it (like the Keweenaw) appears to exist merely as a blank canvas for the author's own purposes. The story of the sinking of the Kamloops, including the deaths of those who came ashore and the subsequent discovery of the bottle containing the note written by Alice Bettridge, would have added a lot of background and depth to the events of the novel, even if treated only briefly. Instead, "A Superior Death" seems analogous to a book in which characters deal with wreckage or artifacts from the Endurance, without any overview of the Shackleton expedition. I suspect the reason the author passed up such a golden opportunity is that the motive she creates for the murder requires her to designate the captain of the Kamloops as engaging in criminal activity during the fatal voyage. If there were historical evidence to support such a charge, then the events of "A Superior Death" could not have happened (because there would have been no secret), and it otherwise seems rather unseemly to impugn a historically-identifiable dead man in such a way. It seems reasonable to guess the author and her publisher felt they could not describe the real crew, their story, and their names, and then go on to claim that the lawbreaking dead captain mentioned in the story was a fictional construct bearing no resemblance to the real person, living or -- in this case -- dead. Regardless of the underlying decision-making process, the resulting work manages to ignore the fascinating human history behind the disaster, while appearing to taint the memory of one of its victims.
Those looking for books about Isle Royale should instead consider the excellent titles by Howard Sivertson (Once upon an Isle: The Story of Fishing Families on Isle Royale and Tales of the Old North Shore: Paintings and Companion Stories), Tom and Kendra Gale (Isle Royale: A Photographic History), Peter Oikarinen (Island Folk: The People of Isle Royale), Jim DuFresne (Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes), and Daniel Lenihan (Shipwrecks of Isle Royale National Park: The Archeological Survey), among others. Everyone else merely searching for a good read should simply look elsewhere.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Wonderful Discovery
Review: Nevada Barr was recommended to me by Sara Paretsky and I agree - her stories are great. The characters are rich and the background interesting. The story is fast paced and intriguing with a nice twist at the end. Good read.
Review Summary: COULD THIS EVER REALLY HAPPEN?
Review: Having read some of these Anna Pigeon mysteries, this was not my favorite. The people were all just too 'messed up'. Is no one normal in the Park System? Anna herself is quite a dame. A boozer with personal problems, she turns into Superwoman! Actually, she's pretty stupid. As quoted from the book, "Anna, you've painted yourself into a corner this time." Just like in a gothic novel or a cheap horror picure, the woman goes at it alone, walks into the most transparent danger, and then escapes with a few scratches. She should be dead! And of course, friends are always just around the corner as they come to the rescue in the nick of time - oh brother! Why didn't she use her head and the technology available - or the FBI? If someone is leaving an island, there are only so many ports they are going to. Radio ahead, Anna. My greatest gripe is the way this lover of Texas takes to the Great Lakes. She dives and handles all types of water craft like a pro. She faces the storms, docks, leaps from boat to boat, hangs off the gunwalls, and does a tie-on flawlessly. Tell me that's not fantasy. I have trouble imagining how her solo boating ventures could happen without mishap. Having spent time on Superior, I can tell you that it is BIG and DANGEROUS. The author makes that point, but the characters are a little disrespectful of that fact as they boat at night, cruise in the fog, etc. In real life, no one plays around with Lady Superior and wins - not even Anna.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Lake Superior gives up some secrets
Review: "Superior Death" by Nevada Barr, ©1994
Ms. Barr always writes a good story, placed in various national parks. These are not the normal parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite, but little traveled ones that get their share of visitors, but not a lot of press. Usually she has a map included, this is the first that did not have one.
The story was sad, people got killed and abused, but really easy to read and interesting. Her stories are more on the lines of suspense/mystery, rather then just mystery, and emphasis on the suspense. This does get a bit expectable and, while exciting, you know she will get away and fight another day.
It is also another example of the sleuth who is not a detective. I have read one of a state game warden and a caterer, as well as this national park ranger.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Underwater Terror
Review: If you have a major fear of water, don't go near Nevada Barr's A SUPERIOR DEATH. The seconded of the Anna Pigeon takes you to the murky bottom of Lake Superior in a thriller guaranteed to rattle your bones. Anna has been transferred from the dry Texas hill county to a little known national park on the shores of our largest fresh water lake with murder following her.
The park people are sceptical of her and her innate curiosity that demands a personal exploration of a famous shipwreck. Mystery--suspense--thrills in unusual environments are becoming a trademark for Ms. Barr.
Don't miss a page of the excellent story.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An Inferior Novel
Review: One of the many problems from which this book suffers is a lack of regional and cultural context. As someone who has lived in the Keweenaw Peninsula, I was looking for descriptions or insights the author might offer regarding the area and its people, but these were conspicuously lacking. Obviously, the author had spent some time in the park, but her portrayal was such that Isle Royale seemed to be surrounded by cardboard cut-out locales. Even though Houghton (the location of the park headquarters) is visited, referenced in numerous ways, and even made the location of a lesbian community of interest to sorting out the sexual preferences of various characters, it remains a cipher -- a nearby blank canvas upon which the author can paint some plot conveniences, but nothing else. Readers will learn more about New York City from this book than they will about western Upper Michigan. Likewise, the people and culture of the Keweenaw Peninsula are pretty much absent from the book, unless one counts the moment where a character -- written sympathetically at that point -- compliments the protagonist for having a capacity for introspection she finds absent in those from the Upper Peninsula.
A second major flaw is the over-use of convenient details and timing. So many coincidences just happen to occur during the short period of time covered by the book that the word "implausible" seems inadequate. I realize this is fiction, but even science fiction writers have recognized for decades that good writing demands reasonable limits upon what an author can do within a particular genre or universe. A novel consciously written and marketed as an action thriller, for example, may stretch credibility in order to move from one over-the-top sequence to another, but since that is the point of the exercise, a reader can buy the book expecting to accept the story on its own terms. This was not the case with "A Superior Death", which I purchased expecting to find a mystery novel set on Isle Royale, not a tale that incorporated so many conveniences as to depart the mystery genre entirely and gravitate into Matthew Reilly territory.
I will describe the following examples in fairly generic language, for the sake of those who still want to read the book. A) One of the most obvious cases of laughably far-fetched convenience is the coincidence by which the protagonist catches on to the killer. B) Two characters possessing a crucial teddy bear originally appeared to have been deliberately written as odd for the purpose of making them interesting, yet after a couple of ludicrous coincidences by which the protagonist is saved, it became obvious that their oddity was also the author's cover for not having to come up with a rational explanation for the series of events. C) A character accidentally chokes to death while engaged in an activity that was, for the character, fairly routine; furthermore, this death was not related to the flow of the story, but conveniently occurred at the end of the book in order to provide a warped kind of closure (since, as other characters make unsubtly clear, the reader was being manipulated into being satisfied with this person's death). D) A missing-person subplot is stretched across the entire length of the book -- long after the official disinterest in locating her was plausibly sustainable, particularly given that the murder victim's wife claimed she hadn't initially reported her husband's disappearance because she thought he had gone to be with the other woman in question.
The identity of the killer wasn't too hard to guess, simply because there was no other justification for the prominence of the person in the story, and the author's attempts to cause the reader to consider other suspects were so ham-handed, the discerning reader is unlikely to take the blind alleys seriously. One of those dead-ends involved two diving partners of the murder victim; the three of them refer to themselves as the Three Musketeers. The problem is that the murder victim was nicknamed after d'Artagnan, who was not one of the Three Musketeers. Yet the author uses this very identification to allow the protagonist to link a knife to the dead man due to the initials "d'A". Clearly, if the author had identified the victim with the actual name of one of the Three Musketeers (Athos, Porthos, and Aramis), any mark on the knife would probably have been either less distinctive or more obvious, depending on the number of letters used in the inscription. So, in order to artificially create a mystery-within-a-mystery, the author has to wrongly identify d'Artagnan as one of the Three Musketeers, and then have at least four characters (the dead man and his partners, as well as the protagonist) consistently follow the same mistake. That's as ludicrous as writing a mystery about a murdered sports buff in which one of the puzzles requires the deceased, his friends, and the detectives to brazenly and consistently identify a famous football player with the wrong team.
Finally, while the author offered some details regarding the underwater condition of the Kamloops shipwreck, it (like the Keweenaw) appears to exist merely as a blank canvas for the author's own purposes. The story of the sinking of the Kamloops, including the deaths of those who came ashore and the subsequent discovery of the bottle containing the note written by Alice Bettridge, would have added a lot of background and depth to the events of the novel, even if treated only briefly. Instead, "A Superior Death" seems analogous to a book in which characters deal with wreckage or artifacts from the Endurance, without any overview of the Shackleton expedition. I suspect the reason the author passed up such a golden opportunity is that the motive she creates for the murder requires her to designate the captain of the Kamloops as engaging in criminal activity during the fatal voyage. If there were historical evidence to support such a charge, then the events of "A Superior Death" could not have happened (because there would have been no secret), and it otherwise seems rather unseemly to impugn a historically-identifiable dead man in such a way. It seems reasonable to guess the author and her publisher felt they could not describe the real crew, their story, and their names, and then go on to claim that the lawbreaking dead captain mentioned in the story was a fictional construct bearing no resemblance to the real person, living or -- in this case -- dead. Regardless of the underlying decision-making process, the resulting work manages to ignore the fascinating human history behind the disaster, while appearing to taint the memory of one of its victims.
Those looking for books about Isle Royale should instead consider the excellent titles by Howard Sivertson (Once upon an Isle: The Story of Fishing Families on Isle Royale and Tales of the Old North Shore: Paintings and Companion Stories), Tom and Kendra Gale (Isle Royale: A Photographic History), Peter Oikarinen (Island Folk: The People of Isle Royale), Jim DuFresne (Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes), and Daniel Lenihan (Shipwrecks of Isle Royale National Park: The Archeological Survey), among others. Everyone else merely searching for a good read should simply look elsewhere.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Wonderful Discovery
Review: Nevada Barr was recommended to me by Sara Paretsky and I agree - her stories are great. The characters are rich and the background interesting. The story is fast paced and intriguing with a nice twist at the end. Good read.