Review of Winter Study by Nevada Barr

This 2008 installment in the adventures of National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon combines Nevada Barr’s signature nature writing with thrilling action and chilling psychological suspense.

The novel takes place on Isle Royale National Park, an island in Lake Superior, in the dead of winter. Anna is flown into the snowbound park, which is closed to tourists during the winter months, to join a group of scientists studying the three packs of gray wolves that make ISRO their home. Homeland Security considers ISRO a potential path for smugglers and terrorists and is threatening to shut down the decades-long research project by opening the park to tourists year-round. Before that happens, Anna hopes to learn something about wolf management, a challenge her home park in Colorado will soon be facing. Instead she ends up investigating the suspicious death of a researcher, who herself was investigating the suspicious death of a wolf.

Barr does a wonderful job of describing the snowbound bunkhouse Anna shares with the researchers, evoking the crunch and squeak of dry, compacted snow underfoot. Through Anna’s eyes we witness a sick old moose harried to death on the lake’s ice by a pack of wolves and watch as the researchers perform a necropsy on a wolf who has died of mysterious wounds.

Anna’s tracking skills are put to good use in unravelling the mystery, and her wilderness survival skills are tested to the absolute limit by ice camping, a near-fatal fall through the ice into the frigid waters of Lake Superior, and her final confrontation with the human villain of the story.

In her characters and their relationships, Barr depicts the odd juxtapositions of isolation and intimacy, caring and hating that grows from the crowded living conditions and constant transience experienced by seasonal park workers.

The clearly drawn supporting characters are intriguing and easy to care about. Their love of their work makes it possible to believe their willingness to sacrifice such creature comforts as electricity and running water in sub-zero temperatures.

Winter Study is a good read for nature lovers, mystery lovers, or anyone looking for a cool fictional escape on a hot summer day.