Winter Study (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) | Nevada Barr

Winter Study (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) | Nevada Barr | Nevada Barr delivers again....

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Winter Study (Anna...

	Winter Study (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) Nevada Barr G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008 - 370 pages average customer review:based on 41 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Nuclear Winter

In this taut, fast-paced thriller, park ranger Anna Pigeon returns to Isle Royale, the same setting as A Superior Death, but this time the season is winter. Anna has come to garner information from the famous wolf/moose population study for use in her home park of Rocky Mountain. In addition to the research team conducting the study, a university professor and his female graduate student have come to evaluate the wolf study on behalf of the federal government.

Anna finds herself as one of seven people, three women and four men, living and working under claustrophobic conditions in a deadly winter environment. As a winter storm cuts off all access to the outside world, Anna becomes aware of tensions within the group that go far beyond the researchers' awareness that Homeland Security wants to shut down the wolf study to keep the park open year round.

In addition, Anna glimpses a monstrous wolf shape in the trees. Huge wolf tracks appear. The much-studied wolf packs of Isle Royale behave strangely. A dead wolf is found with a torn throat and no other injuries, as if it fought and was instantly killed by...something. Anna thinks uncomfortably of the legend of the windigo, a monstrous predator able to drag grown men away to vanish without trace. Maybe it is "only" a large wolf-dog hybrid--but then how did it arrive on this winter-bound island when the ice does not go all the way to the mainland?

Then Katherine, the graduate student, has a falling out with her mentor Bob. Is it because he has sold out and plans to recommend that the wolf study be ended to please Homeland Security? She disappears. A ghostly message "Help Me" appears in ice crystals on the window pane. Her dismembered body is discovered the next day. Apparently, she has been killed by the very wolves she admires and studies. But tough, hard-headed Anna persists in investigating even though it seems no crime has been committed, and even though she knows she can't call for "back up" with the island cut off from civilization.

This spooky story is Nevada Barr writing at her best. With clean, crisp prose, she details the savage beauty of winter and the savage brutality of human nature. The violence here does not make for cozy reading, but Barr has transcended "police procedural" genre because of style, setting and a lyrical layering of tensions that her fictional detective eventually unravels. Brilliant, spooky and best of all, Isle Royale and its wolf study are both real. Outstanding.

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Nevada Barr delivers again....

A long time addict of Nevada Barr's books, I always worry that the latest one will somehow fall below the very high standards the author has set. Never fear, Winter Study is yet another superb example of the author's craft. A truly enjoyable read. Normal people reaching to do amazing things, spectacular locations, a sense of total groundedness.... I try to live a life of not acquiring possessions that clutter - most of my books get recycled to friends. I never part with a Nevada Barr and this one is no exception. It will be read over and over again like the rest of the collection. If you have not yet sampled Nevada Barr, you are missing a great author. If you HAVE sampled Nevada Barr then I am preaching to the choir :>)

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Winter Study

Wonderful, grabs you in the beginning and becomes a "can't put it down" story. One of her best.

An above-average mystery set in an interesting location

This mystery takes place on Isle Royale, in the middle of Lake Superior, in the middle of winter. This national park is closed from October to April except for the personnel of the "Winter Study." This is the world's longest scientific study and focuses on wolf-moose interactions (predatory-prey systems) over the long term. To my surprise, the retired members of the study appear by name, while two others are "fictionalized" (only weakly so in the case of the one I've met).

Nevada Barr and her fictional persona, Anna Pigeon, both hate to be cold. Not surprisingly, the sense of being cold pervades the book. Even so, Barr treats the cold inconsistently, rushing the characters inside in some situations while letting them stay outside endlessly in other cases. Some characters even perform feats outside while naked or scantily clad, which will doubtless help Barr sell the movie rights.

If you know the island, you'll find little annoyances as you go along. Some could be typos - - saying "west" when she means "east" and sometimes mixing up the names and ranges of wolf packs, for example. Barr has a cavalier attitude toward distance. While one expert skier reasonably covers a lot of ground in the story, several characters *hike* more than 20 miles a day with packs, through snow, in heavy winter clothes. There are also errors of geography, such as switchbacks where there aren't switchbacks and a cliff where there isn't a cliff. I see that other reviewers thought that Barr conveyed both the wildness of the place and the depth of the cold well, so that small, odd minority of us who like winter camping in wildernesses should not complain too much.

What about the story? The structure of the plot will be familiar to anyone who has seen Scooby Doo episodes, with a partial twist in the identity of the villain. The narrative moves along nicely and has the misdirection essential to a mystery though it also has too much telegraphing of the real villain. Once again, our heroine performs extraordinary feats more appropriate to the "Die Hard" movies than to a national park ranger.

For overall plot and characterizations, this book belongs in the "above average" category of the Anna Pigeon novels. Like most of the series, it has a strong sense of place - - though that comes with minor annoyances if you happen to know the place.

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Scariest Anna Pigeon mystery yet

Beyond the stellar series hero Anna Pigeon (by herself enough to recommend the book), "Winter Study" has a wonderfully visual setting: Michigan's Isle Royale National Park, where Anna has joined a research project on the area's wolf and moose population. Complicating the study is the presence of the Dept of Homeland Security due to border security concerns. Amid the unforgivingly harsh winter weather, with it's blinding blizzards and teeming darkness, comes a deadly attack on a fellow researcher by an unknown, abnormally large and powerful animal, and the odd, unusually provocative behavior by local wolf packs against the region's human-populated settlements. Hanging over it all is the irrational paranoia of legendary ghosts and mythical beasts. But Anna has more to contend with than just old campfire stories: there are several scenes of satisfyingly brutal violence, as well as terrifying natural threats to overcome. I think this is one of the series' grimmest entries (which I like), with spine-tingling dread and suspense building on every page. Highly recommended if you don't mind the darker nature of the story and the villains.
Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There - winner of the Malice Domestic Award for best first mystery, it features a vividly rendered desert backdrop that should please fans of Barr's colorful natural settings.

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