A Superior Death (Anna Pigeon, #2) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jan 23, 2016 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery

For a while they sat without talking. Anna got her daypack and dug out a paperback copy of Ivanhoe. It produced a book’s inevitable effect. In cats it stimulated the urge to sit on the pages. In humans it stimulated conversation.

Yes! so true! And who can resist reading a book with witticisms such as these? and then there's this:

“What if he wasn’t psychotic? What if he just ate her to dispose of the corpse?” “Anna, you’ve been out in the woods too long. If he ate her, for whatever reason,

For a while they sat without talking. Anna got her daypack and dug out a paperback copy of Ivanhoe. It produced a book’s inevitable effect. In cats it stimulated the urge to sit on the pages. In humans it stimulated conversation.

Yes! so true! And who can resist reading a book with witticisms such as these? and then there's this:

“What if he wasn’t psychotic? What if he just ate her to dispose of the corpse?” “Anna, you’ve been out in the woods too long. If he ate her, for whatever reason, doesn’t that seem a teensyweensy bit psycho to you?” “I guess,” Anna conceded. “I guess,” Molly confirmed.

This is my second Anna Pigeon novel (the first was High Country, I am reading them completely out of order). As with the first one I read, there is a certain j'ne sais quois that keeps me from fully loving it. It's almost as if Ms Barr is trying too hard to be literary or lyrical, when really her nature is to write a hard boiled straight-up murder mystery.

The drizzle had stopped and the sun was piercing through a rent in the clouds above the island, pouring gold down onto the treetops until they glowed a rich green against their shadowed fellows. Sparks of sunshine reached the water. Where they touched, the lake turned emerald and azure. Light, life, color: Anna breathed deeply and knew the breath for a miracle, a celebration, an act of devotion.

I want the straight-up murder mystery. I like Anna, but I think I wouldn't really want to hang out with her, she's a little too mopey and snooty. And just like with the first book I read, I keep getting confused about who people are and where they are: I need an appendix that spells out the Park Ranger hierarchy, because I can't ever seem to keep it straight, who's the boss? what's that guy's job? And I really needed a map of Isle Royale National Park because I NEVER knew where Anna was or where she lived or where she belonged or where the Park headquarters are or if there was actually a hotel on one of the islands or just a Ranger center. The only location I could keep straight was the Kamloops wreck. It wouldn't bother me that much except she keeps mentioning where Anna is going, which island she is docking at, where she is walking, etc. The book is littered with passages such as this:

Coming around Blake’s Point, eyes glued to the Loran, Anna was half sorry the water was so flat. Even the slamming of the hull against hard water would have been preferable to the absolute nothing she felt. Between Blake’s Point and Steamboat Island, Anna executed a turn to the 248-degree heading dictated by experience and charting. Amygdaloid Channel, usually a narrow comforting waterway, took on a different aspect when neither shore was visible. She threaded her way carefully down the center. The dock at the ranger station was deserted. Having eased the Belle Isle into her space, Anna disembarked.

Where is Blake's Point??? Is Steamboat Island next to Amygdaloid Island??? I DON'T KNOW!!!

All this confusion made me a fidgety reader; since I was never quite sure what was going on, it was difficult for me to stay focused on the story. I read the ebook, and - unusually, for me - I kept clicking over to the main page of my device to check for Facebook updates or find a game to play. So I guess that means the story was boring me. And that's not for lack of descriptions or creepiness - the scene when Anna had to dive down to the Kamloops to retrieve the body had me feeling cold and wet and shaking. There's a gripping story here. But I kept getting knocked out of the story by my confusion about where we were and/or who that person is (wait! Is he Anna's boss? Or her boss's boss? Or a peer?).

I enjoyed this okay, but I guessed who the perp was early on in the book (which is unusual for me) so it just made Anna seem slow to not suspect the same person. Once Anna was hot on the trail, things got more exciting and I lost my fidgetiness. As in so many mysteries, Anna does stupid stuff, but maybe that's written into the contract of a mystery author? "Character must do stupid things and throw themselves into harm's way, the readers expect it!"

To continue with my quibbling, twice (twice!) Anna left something lying around, and we never find out what happened to it!! Once, she leaves files open on her boss's desk and then jumps out the window to track a suspicious character ... what happened when her boss returned to his office the next morning and found files spread out?? And once she leaves photos lying on a front porch, fluttering in the wind, while she runs off to talk to a harried parent. Did the photos blow away? were they discovered by someone else?? First this:

Beside Anna, on the step, were the underwater photographs of the Kamloops. A breeze stirred them, and she tucked them under her thigh lest they blow into the dirt. “Maybe I’ll learn something by osmosis,” she said to Knucklehead.

and then this:

The roar of a motorboat broke up the fray. Flashes of red enlivened the bushes as they all disappeared, running as if they’d not been born and raised with the sound of boat engines. Anna stood to see who was causing the ruckus.

What did she do with the photos??? We never find out. That's sloppy editing.

Plus, I really like beer, but I'm very particular about my beer. I do not care for the German style and I don't really like Leinenkugel. Frequent mention of drinking Leinenkugels made my stomach a little queasy. It's right up there with Corona and Stella so far as I'm concerned - gack. Okay okay, to be fair, Corona and Stella are InBev brands and Leinenkugel is a SABMiller brand. So I should say it's right up there with Blue Moon and Pilsner Urquell, to stay in the SABMiller family. None for me, thanks! I'll take a Sierra Nevada! (Better yet, a Founders All Day.)

I read this book to fulfill the "takes place on an island" category of the 2016 Popsugar Ultimate Reading Challenge.
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