From Publishers Weekly
In her second appearance, after Track of the Cat , National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon is posted to an island in Lake Superior, where her interest in wildlife is fully engaged by the local population of humans. Two scuba-diving tourists exploring an old, submerged wreck discover a recent addition: the body of Denny Castle, who ran a commercial diving concession in the park. This makes Anna uneasy about the mysterious disappearance of Donna Butkus, wife of fellow ranger Scotty Butkus. Hawk Bradshaw, who worked with Denny, suggests that there was a link between Denny and Donna, but Hawk is less revealing about the nature of the relationship he and his twin sister had with the dead man and the impact Denny's recent marriage (to yet another woman) had on it. The Bradshaws aren't the only reticent ones here; indeed, Barr's characters hide enough unsavory secrets to keep a soap opera humming for months. Despite the wealth of personal intrigue, FBI agent Frederic Stanton looks for a drug connection to the murder: "I'm all for drugs . . . Takes the guesswork out of law enforcement." The levelheaded Anna is again a treat as she and a couple of minor characters whose lives don't verge on melodrama keep the story from floundering on the rocks. Mystery Guild alternate; paperback rights to Avon. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-Transferring to a ranger position at Isle Royale National Park in Michigan, Anna Pigeon misses the Texas sun and heat of her former park. She cringes at the damp, penetrating cold that accompanies the foggy, gray days on Lake Superior. She swaps her horse for a boat but continues to be surrounded by dead bodies in her second mystery. The strange corpse she encounters on her new job is that of a well-known diver. She finds it in the engine room of a ship that sank at the turn of the century with the five original crew still aboard. Those corpses have been preserved by the frigid lake waters and are a grim "tourist attraction" for scuba divers. As Anna seeks the identity of the killer, she is never far from the northern woods, characterized by their earthy scents, lingering midday chill, and multitude of flora and fauna. While detecting, she tries to sort out her feelings about life, her status as a widow, and her need for solitude interspersed with friendships. She is a captivating, daredevil detective whose adventures will delight mystery readers.Pam Spencer, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VACopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Barr has written an intriguing if unusual story that successfully combines a refreshing enthusiasm for nature, an impassioned entreaty for environmental awareness, and an engrossing murder mystery. Leaving Texas to take a job in northern Michigan, park ranger Anna Pigeon soon becomes involved in a puzzling murder involving a drowned diver and a mysterious shipwreck. Her investigation puts her in touch with some odd characters, including Pizza Dave, who's as large as a small tractor, and Holly and Hawk, a brother and sister dive team whose love for the briny deep hides a dark secret. Between extracting fish hooks from the limbs of amateur fishermen, instructing naive tourists about the local wildlife, and corralling drunken boaters, Anna puts her considerable skills toward solving the puzzle of who killed the diver and why. Barr, a park ranger, provides plenty of authentic details about life in the great outdoors, and her deft plotting and appealingly quirky characters give her story plenty of punch. Anna Pigeon is tough-minded, strong, sensitive, vulnerable, and funny. Emily Melton

From Kirkus Reviews
Texas park ranger Anna Pigeon (Track of the Cat, 1993) proves she's much more than a regional specialist when she's reassigned to the frigid North Shore of Lake Superior and hears two divers' tales of finding six bodies in the Kamloops, a sunken 1927 wreck where there are supposed to be only five. Who could've killed dive concessionaire Denny Castle on his honeymoon night--and what was he doing down there anyway? With his on-again-off-again lover Donna Butkus missing (her ranger husband Scotty's story that she's visiting her sick sister is no match for flaky Tinker and Damien Coggins-Clarke's accusation that he's killed and eaten her), the field is almost too rich: his young widow Jo, aggrieved Scotty, Denny's diving partners (and heirs) Hawk and Holly Bradshaw, whatever mysterious man innkeeper Patience Bradshaw's daughter Carrie Ann is making time with--all of them with variously guilty secrets of their own. But the final revelation of culprit and motive will surprise all but the most alert readers. A crackling good mystery, fleshed out by a detective and a supporting cast far more human than they need to be. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Park ranger Anna Pigeon returns, in a mystery that unfolds in and around Lake Superior, in whose chilling depths sunken treasure comes with a deadly price. In her latest mystery, Nevada Barr sends Ranger Pigeon to a new post amid the cold, deserted, and isolated beauty of Isle Royale National Park, a remote island off the coast of Michigan known for fantastic deep-water dives of wrecked sailing vessels. Leaving behind memories of the Texas high desert and the environmental scam she helped uncover, Anna is adjusting to the cool damp of Lake Superior and the spirits and lore of the northern Midwest. But when a routine application for a diving permit reveals a grisly underwater murder, Anna finds herself 260 feet below the forbidding surface of the lake, searching for the connection between a drowned man and an age-old cargo ship. Written with a naturalist's feel for the wilderness and a keen understanding of characters who thrive in extreme conditions, A Superior Death is a passionate, atmospheric page-turner.

FROM THE CRITICS

Denver Post

Haunting. . .Wonderful. . .Vivid and Memorable. . .A Book That Is Just About Perfect.

New York Times Book Review

Nevada Barr writes with a cool, steady hand about the violence of nature and the cruelty of man.

Washington Post Book World

A wonderful satisfying read.

Washington Post Book World

A wonderful satisfying read.

Publishers Weekly

In her second appearance, after Track of the Cat , National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon is posted to an island in Lake Superior, where her interest in wildlife is fully engaged by the local population of humans. Two scuba-diving tourists exploring an old, submerged wreck discover a recent addition: the body of Denny Castle, who ran a commercial diving concession in the park. This makes Anna uneasy about the mysterious disappearance of Donna Butkus, wife of fellow ranger Scotty Butkus. Hawk Bradshaw, who worked with Denny, suggests that there was a link between Denny and Donna, but Hawk is less revealing about the nature of the relationship he and his twin sister had with the dead man and the impact Denny's recent marriage (to yet another woman) had on it. The Bradshaws aren't the only reticent ones here; indeed, Barr's characters hide enough unsavory secrets to keep a soap opera humming for months. Despite the wealth of personal intrigue, FBI agent Frederic Stanton looks for a drug connection to the murder: ``I'm all for drugs . . . Takes the guesswork out of law enforcement.'' The levelheaded Anna is again a treat as she and a couple of minor characters whose lives don't verge on melodrama keep the story from floundering on the rocks. Mystery Guild alternate; paperback rights to Avon. (Mar.) Read all 7 "From The Critics" >

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