Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780399154584
ISBN: 0399154582
Label: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Manufacturer: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 370
Publication Date: 2008-04-01
Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Studio: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Anna Pigeon returns—in the remarkable new novel from the New York Times–bestselling writer.

It is January, and Park Ranger Anna Pigeon is sent to Isle Royale in Lake Superior to learn about managing and understanding wolves, as her home base of Rocky Mountain National Park might soon have their own pack of the magnificent, much-maligned animals. She’s housed in the island’s bunkhouse with the famed wolf study team, along with two scientists from Homeland Security, who are assessing the study with an eye to opening the park each winter—effectively bringing an end to the fifty-year study—so that it can be manned to secure the scrap of border with Canada.

Soon after Anna’s arrival, the wolf packs under observation begin to act in peculiar ways. Giant wolf prints are found, and Anna spies the form of a great wolf from a surveillance plane. The discovery of wolf scat containing alien DNA leads the team to believe that perhaps a wolf/dog hybrid has been introduced to the island. When a female member of the team is savaged, Anna is convinced she is being stalked, and what was once a beautiful, idyllic refuge becomes a place of unnatural occurrences and danger beyond the ordinary. Alone on an island without electricity or running water, with temperatures hovering around zero both day and night, Anna fights not only for the wolves, but for also her own survival.

Filled with the nail-biting suspense, richly drawn characters and gorgeous nature writing that are her hallmarks, Winter Study is vintage Barr, proving once again that she’s “a real writer, in every sense of the word” (The Denver Post).

Customer Rating:
Summary: Anna Returns to Lake Superior
Comment: I've always thought that "A Superior Death," an earlier entry in Nevada Barr's always-fabulous series about park ranger Anna Pigeon, was one of the very best. It was also almost too scary to read. So I started "Winter Study" with a bit of trepidation: What would happen to Anna now?

Plenty. We find Anna older and a lot crankier, stuck in a park in the snowy tundra near Lake Superior where the only happy campers are the wolves and the moose. Anna is part of a team that includes several wolf researchers and other experts, and a smarmy Homeland Security agent; why he is there is more than needs explaining in this review.

Soon enough, scary and desperate things start to happen, from the possible sighting of a mythical half dog-half wolf of gargantuan and unworldly proportions, to the disapperance of a young researcher to scary messages traced on a window to much, much more.

Throughout it all, we literally feel the cold. We can feel the frostbite, the fear, the desperation--everything. It's as though we are there. It is truly uncanny.

My only complaint is that Anna's marriage to Paul, while given some words, is only that, words. She is always parted from him and it doesn't feel real. I miss her dog Taco (which morphed breeds in an earlier book from a golden retriever to a black lab), and I miss her sister. Anna seems almost eerily isolated--but maybe that's the point.

As always, a wonderful read in the series.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Nevada Barr's "Winter Study"
Comment: Anna Pigeon has a Winter Study (Anna Pigeon Mysteries)rather tumultous series of experiences in this book - more than "usual" but held interest and was a 'good read' --

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Average Book
Comment: This book should have been edited better. It was too slow. It's about 100 pages too long. As all of Nevada Barr's books, there's entirely too much internal dialogue. If some of that was cut back, it would pick up the pace. I found myself skipping a lot of the pages.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: BIG DISAPOINTMENT
Comment: I am a big Nevada Barr fan and have read all her books. Winter Study is just too unbelievable. I found it raw and gritty. No one could live through all that. The plot was hard to follow and characters were hard to keep straight. Don't spend you hard earned money on this one!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Following Anna
Comment: I started following Anna Pigeon in Track of the Cat, a book I checked out of the library because it had the word "track" in it back when I was just learning to track. Since then I have read every book I could find by Nevada Barr, even those without the famous Anna Pigeon in them because when it is all said and done, this writer will be a classic. The Anna Pigeon in this latest book has lived through so many harrowing mysteries that she has gained skills and savvy that make her almost a different character. Who says a female protagonist needs to be a ditz? Not that Anna doesn't get hurt in this one, but she gives as good as she got. This is a read where you don't find yourself frustrated with the main character being stupid. Instead you are right with her unraveling the mystery as she does, only being spared the physical pains.

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