Rating: 
Summary: Could it be a better book about da UP, eh?
Review: Once again the magical Nevada Barr takes us to a place where we can see and smell and taste and feel the world around us! As someone who lives on the shores of Lake Superior, I congratulate her for what I already knew was her sense of detail and place, and of respecting and loving something so much as to tell its story well.
This is an intriguing story, and Anna Pigeon becomes both more of an enigma and someone we count on.
Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Cold, dark danger in the Upper Peninsula
Review: Ranger Anna Pidgeon has left the dry heat of west Texas, and gone diving in the frigid waters of Lake Superior, as she is now assigned to Isle Royale National Park. An experienced diver turns up dead, 260 ft below the surface in a sunken relic of all places. Furthermore, he's dressed in a comical 19th century boating captain's uniform. Anna has a number of strange characters to deal with in this tale, including a whimsical young couple who think another park ranger is a cannibal. Although the story is exciting and fresh, I found the transition from scene to scene a bit confusing. Furthermore, there were too many characters and boat names to keep track of. Had Ms Barr made the number of characters a bit more manageable for the reader, this would easily be a 5 star book.
Rating:
Summary: Cold, dark danger in the Upper Peninsula
Review: Ranger Anna Pidgeon has left the dry heat of west Texas, and gone diving in the frigid waters of Lake Superior, as she is now assigned to Isle Royale National Park. An experienced diver turns up dead, 260 ft below the surface in a sunken relic of all places. Furthermore, he's dressed in a comical 19th century boating captain's uniform. Anna has a number of strange characters to deal with in this tale, including a whimsical young couple who think another park ranger is a cannibal. Although the story is exciting and fresh, I found the transition from scene to scene a bit confusing. Furthermore, there were too many characters and boat names to keep track of. Had Ms Barr made the number of characters a bit more manageable for the reader, this would easily be a 5 star book.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, well written!
Review: This book is a great read. Interesting, well defined development. Plot twists and turns. A fine book to curl up with. You won't want to put it down, and will likely find your self reading it over again.
Rating:
Summary: A Superior Mystery!
Review: This is my favorite book in the Anna Pigeon series! Lake Superior is an interesting location for Anna to sleuth, especially since part of her park is buried beneath the cold waters of the glacial lake. I'm chilled by the idea of sunken shipwrecks anyway, so a mystery on one is delightful! As always, Nevada Barr is able to really bring you into her stories. I almost feel like I've visited her parks after each new book. This one is a must for any fan!
Rating:
Summary: A Superior Mystery!
Review: This is my favorite book in the Anna Pigeon series! Lake Superior is an interesting location for Anna to sleuth, especially since part of her park is buried beneath the cold waters of the glacial lake. I'm chilled by the idea of sunken shipwrecks anyway, so a mystery on one is delightful! As always, Nevada Barr is able to really bring you into her stories. I almost feel like I've visited her parks after each new book. This one is a must for any fan!
Rating:
Summary: Another Good Mystery
Review: This is the fourth Nevada Barr mystery I've read and although "Firestorm" was my favorite, this one is a close second. It rambles a bit in places but it's a pleasant ramble. She has a way of weaving several mysteries together and bringing them to a very satisfying conclusion
Rating: 
Summary: Too Coincidental and Dumb
Review: This was a thoroughly enjoyable mystery thanks to the setting and the largely-irrelevant but amusing sexual escapades of many characters. The heroine, Anna Pigeon, is a great character. She also has rich relationships with other characters, especially a long-distance relationship with her sister Molly, a friendship from an earlier book, and a significant-other-to-be introduced here.
Though the characters made it a good book, this wasn't entirely satisfactory as a mystery. I thought it relatively easy to figure out Who Done It even before the victim was murdered, thanks to a random off-site clue and the book jacket. Fortunately, I remained unclear about whether the murderer had accomplices, and whether any of those secondary stories would end up being relevant. These plot points kept me involved, and thanks to the characterization the book was hard to put down.
Isle Royale National Park plays an important role in the park. It's interesting that this was Barr's first job in the National Park Service. Here as in her other books, she has an interesting perspective on rangers and tourists. As someone who has backpacked on Isle Royale, I didn't mind her dumping on the boaters (though the boaters I've met there were pleasant enough). It would have been good to see backpackers in the book, and I wish that Anna Pigeon had spotted a wolf somewhere on the island. But that's just me.
As someone who loves Isle Royale and the North Woods, I was also mildly annoyed that Barr complained so much about the place -- the weather, the woods, and so on. It's clear from her other books that she is a warm-weather person who loves the South, the desert, and California. I still liked the book, but if you're a northerner like me you'll probably experience similar annoyances.
Like High Sierra and a few other Barr books, this one has its unbelievable action hero moments at the very end. I really wish that Anna Pigeon would call for backup when she has solved the crime instead of confronting the villain one-on-one in the wilderness. Nevada Barr needs to rescue Anna Pigeon in some way other than a blackout at the hands of the villain (as in both Superior Death and High Sierra).
Rating:
Summary: Best Nevada Barr book!
Review: This was the first Nevada Barr book I ever read,it caught my eye since it was written about Lake Superior. I live in Michigan and love that lake. The book was so well written that I've read all of her other books since. But this was my favorite. Highly recommend reading this one!
Rating:
Summary: A Unique Page-Turner
Review: When reading Nevada Barr, it's wise to remember that it's not the mystery, but the medium. In this second of the delightful Anna Pigeon series, our intrepid Park Ranger is stationed at Lake Superior, probably the most unforgiving and treacherous of all the Great Lakes. Just like her first book in the series, "Track of the Cat," Barr draws the reader quickly and completely into the medium--in this case, the cold, eerie and wicked Lake Superior. In no time, I was suited up with Anna, ready to make a life-threatening dive down to a well-known shipwreck that houses five ghostly bodies--and one very new one. Who killed fellow ranger Denny Castle, himself a skilled and "superior" diver? How did his body, dressed in macabre costume, become lodged in the engine room of the wreck? Anna and her fellow Rangers, an eclectic and motley crew if there ever was one, set out in their various ways to solve the mystery. They are aided, whether they like it or not, by a brash young FBI operative who is certain that the murder is drug-related. The identity of the murderer and the motive behind the murder take a back seat to the truly unique and wonderful descriptions of the place, the people, and especially Anna, who is one tough cookie. Almost. A great, quick, summer read. I recommend "A Superior Death" to anybody who enjoys a well-written, if not a psychologically challenging, mystery. Anna Pigeon, in my mind, is one of the great characters, and well worth this reader's time.
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