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The Woman Who Married a Bear
The Woman Who Married a Bear | John Straley
8 posts | 6 read | 2 to read
"Highly refreshing setting, a great cast of characters and an intriguing plot."--The Bloomsbury Review "Atmospheric."--The New York Times Book Review "Flashes of the dark poetry of Ross MacDonald."--Chicago Tribune "A rich stew of deception and menace."--Anchorage Daily News "Outstanding . . . satisfies on all levels."--The Kansas City Star Sitka, Alaska, is a subarctic port surrounded by snow-dusted mountains. In addition to honest work, there is a lot of alcohol consumed and other people's money appropriated. Bars are loud, fights are mean. Rowdy youths party in the ancient Russian cemeteries, sitting on overturned gravestones. Sitka is hardly straight-laced, but murder is uncommon enough to be widely noted--like the Indian big-game guide killed by an ex-miner obeying voices from the earth's center. The victim's mother, a Tlingit Indian, summons to her nursing home a local investigator named Cecil Younger. The case is old and ostensibly solved. She wants him to investigate anyway. What he unearths is a virtual fairytale contrived to hide a primal conspiracy. Set against the modern Alaskan frontier and the surviving pantheism of its indigenous population, The Woman Who Married a Bear is a brooding and exotic novel that touches on mysteries far beyond the conventional. John Straley, a criminal investigator for the state of Alaska, lives in Sitka with his son and wife, a marine biologist who studies whales. He is the Shamus Award-winning author of The Curious Eat Themselves and The Music of What Happens.
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JacintaMCarter
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Pickpick

#2021Book117
The mystery in this book is fairly believable, and the detective is a solid, though perfectly flawed, character. But the wrap-up once the mystery is solved was a little too abrupt, as though Straley had hit his word count and wanted to just be finished.

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Butterfinger
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Pickpick

A murder mystery steeped in Tlingit folklore and set in the wild of Alaska. This is one of those books where the place adds to the mood of the book. I would recommend to any mystery reader

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Nebklvr
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Mehso-so

The writing was decent. The story dark and disturbing. I am rather tired of the hard, alcoholic detective trope.

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SomedayAlmost
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“The best part of a murder trial is the victim never gets a chance to testify.” ~John Straley #murder #privateinvestigator #mystery #Alaska

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SomedayAlmost
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Hard-drinking P.I. protagonist of my Alaska-set summer read is deeper than he seems. The intriguing Sitka setting is getting me excited to travel to Alaska soon... #mystery #coolsetting

ReadingOver50 Love books set in Alaska 5y
16 likes1 comment
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ReadingEnvy
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Mehso-so

I decided to read a book from my shelves for a change! The Woman Who Married a Bear by John Straley, originally published in 1992, is the first in the Cecil Younger Investigation series. A man is killed by what they think is bears but the autopsy reveals a gunshot wound. Cecil is hired by his mother to find out not who but why. Some elements of Tlingit mythology and set in various parts of Alaska.

Leftcoastzen I see a doggy snout! 5y
ReadingEnvy @Leftcoastzen it's a bonus feature 5y
65 likes2 comments
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ReadingEnvy
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I'm so tired of never getting to my own books so I'm taking a break from the looming library pile and the guiltridden galleys and reading one I bought on Orcas Island, set in Sitka, Alaska.

batsy #GuiltriddenGalleys is definitely a thing 5y
ReadingEnvy @batsy I know and when I found myself hating on three in a row I thought hmm maybe I need a break. 5y
66 likes2 comments
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JSW
Pickpick

I enjoyed this new-to-me author and the first in a series set in Alaska. But why are private detectives always so tortured?