jentech's Full Review: Nevada Barr - A Superior Death
My husband asks me from time to time why I keep reading murder mysteries. He says, “They’re all the same: someone gets killed, they spend a while chasing down the killer and in the end the bad guy gets caught!” What he doesn’t seem to understand is that I read to experience the journey and scenery, not to reach a destination.
In the case of this Nevada Barr book “A Superior Death,” the journey was stupendous. This is the second of Barr’s books that I’ve read and I liked it so well that I’m ready to go out and buy the rest of her books! Really!
“A Superior Death” is set on and around Lake Superior – hence the title. The main character, Anna Pigeon, is a park ranger who has recently transferred from the warmth of Texas into the summer chill of Lake Superior. Anna has traded her horse for a boat and scuba gear and now spends her time rescuing amateur boaters, fishermen and divers from the ravages of the lake.
Over the years Lake Superior has claimed many ships; the America, Monarch, Cumberland, Edmund Fitzgerald, and Kamloops are among the more famous. The Kamloops takes center stage in Barr’s book. This particular wreck attracts many divers because of the well preserved corpses in the engine room, but only skilled divers visit it due to the dangerous depth at which it lies. Near the beginning of the book, a set of divers report to Anna Pigeon that there is an extra body on the Kamloops, dressed in a vintage captain’s uniform. Further investigation shows that the extra man is a local diver – a very experienced diver and newlywed. Questions arise as to how he got down there without scuba gear and how he came to be costumed. The next bit of the book is spent explaining some of the problems with an underwater investigation and details the retrieval of the body from the Kamloops. Anna Pigeon seems to be rather new to scuba diving, but accepts the challenge of making this highly technical dive with other Park Service members. Barr very skillfully details many aspects of the dive as seen through Anna’s eyes. Barr goes into quite a bit of detail, but breaks it up and intersperses it in the story in such a way that it was quite enjoyable to read. I like to know what’s going on and it was nice to understand why the dive required the skills it did. All of these technical details help later in the book, and the understanding helps lend suspense to the climactic scene at the end of the book.
Subsequent to the retrieval of the body from the Kamloops comes the conclusion that the man had definitely been murdered and the ensuing investigation. The investigation, into which Anna is rather obliquely drawn, is complicated by the case of a missing woman. A pair of rather eccentric college age students claim to have evidence that the missing woman has been killed by her husband and eaten by him, along with a case of pickle relish. This is inspired by a local legend of a cannibal spirit that inhabits part of the lake. Anna doesn’t take the cannibalism part seriously, but the woman is definitely missing. The investigation into her disappearance and the murder of the diver quickly become intertwined. But are they really related? I’ll let you read to find out.
As my husband stated simply, “… in the end the bad guy gets caught.” The way she’s caught though is in itself worth reading the book for. It involves a lone dive by Anna to the Kamloops, a boat chase and the near death of Anna. It is very suspenseful and exciting. I had a hard time putting the book down as I neared the end.
Though I’ve made it sound like this book spends a lot of time with technical details, they really don'’ take up much of the book. The pace is quick and smooth as Anna’s investigations take her from one place to the next, from one conclusion to the next. There’s no lack of action here.
I really enjoyed the kid of “hero” that Barr has created in Anna Pigeon. She’s very life-like with real life problems (grieving over her husband’s death) and idiosyncrasies (she often drinks a bit too much). She’s simple and down to earth, unlike some of Alistair MacLean’s heroes, for example, who are indestructible and larger than life. Anna presses on through what life throws at her the best she can – just like the rest of us.
All in all, this book was terrific. I would read it again in a minute, and I highly recommend it.
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