The Woman Who Married a Bear: An Alaskan Mystery [Hardcover]

John Straley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1992

In Sitka, Alaska, the bizarre death of a big-game hunter years before is investigated by investigator Cecil Younger, who uncovers a many-layered mystery involving the folklore and mythology of the local Tlingit Indians.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A compelling narrator/protagonist and colorful local details propel this commanding mystery, the first of a projected series set in Alaska. Cecil Younger is a bundle of paradoxes: a hard-drinking private eye in Sitka, he writes haiku and lives with the guilt of career failure and the pain born when he wife walked out on him. Younger needs a good case to get his mind off his troubles, and it comes when an old Tlingit woman hires him to find out why her son, big-game guide Louis Victor, was shot to death. She does not believe the mentally unbalanced man convicted of the crime was responsible. Younger takes on the closed case mainly to placate the grieving mother, but after he is the target of potshots, he comes to believe there is a deeper story than the facts suggest. Throwing himself into the case, he travels from Sitka to Juneau to Anchorage to track down and question the victim's wife, grown children, friends and fellow guides. Sustaining the suspense from start to satisfying, unexpected finish, first novelist Straley, a criminal investigator for Alaska's Public Defender Agency, since suspense is sustained thru plot, seems awk to mention them separately has written a book whose unique, fully fleshed-out characters readers will be eager to see again.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Cecil Younger, a private investigator of sorts in Sitka, Alaska, has many enemies besides the alcohol he so assiduously consumes. One of them tries to kill him when he asks questions about the murder of an Indian--even though the convicted killer sits in prison. Cecil's quest connects him with a cross-section of frontier inhabitants: Indians, Eskimos, hunters, drunkards, even an estranged lover. Straley's evocative prose conjures up both natural wonder and human tawdriness without slackening the insistent suspense. A promising debut.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 225 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0939149648
• ISBN-13: 978-0939149643
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,042,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable and fascinating, September 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Woman Who Married a Bear (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book a lot. The Alaskan setting is beautifully described by someone who knows it intimately. The characters are (mostly) unique and memorable; even the potentially cliche-ridden drunken P.I. Younger has a complicated and intriguing background. The writing is economical in the way good poetry is economical -- comparisons with Raymond Chandler are apt, as he's one of the few mystery writers who manage to achieve the same balance. And the animal characters -- ravens, bears, eagles -- are used brilliantly to enhance the drama of the story. I found the mystery itself rather weak: of COURSE the guy who's doing time for the crime didn't commit it, and the isolated setting means that the number of suspects is necessarily limited. The P.I.'s elderly client doesn't tell him the eponymous legend until very late in the book, but that was a wise decision on the author's part, as it clearly gives away who done it. But the climax is still exciting enough, and calls on all of Younger's considerable resourcefulness. I'm definitely planning to read the rest of the series.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book, February 2, 2002

By 

Judith Lindenau "dulcie22" (Traverse City, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Woman Who Married a Bear (Paperback)

"The Woman Who Married A Bear" is an incredibly wonderful novel. It is filled with one-of-a-kind characters who mesh into a compelling, tangled story line. Add to that mix the uniqueness of Sitka, Alaska and and the craftsmanship of Straley as a writer, and you have a fine reading experience. I've ordered the other novels in the Cecil Younger series, and I can't wait to get at 'em.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well done story telling with creepy atmosphere, June 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Woman Who Married a Bear (Paperback)

Having read The Curious Eat Themselves and being intrigued by the way Straley uses Alaskan wildlife (especially the appearance of ravens), geography and climate to enhance the often creepy mood permeating the storyline I sought out his first. I'm glad I did. Here is an Alaskan version of vintage Chandler. I marveled at the similarities between this novel and The Big Sleep or The Little Sister with the strong matriarch in Straley's novel (analagous to the patriarchs found in Chandler's work) fighting to preserve the family name and honor, no matter what the cost. Also fascinating is Straley's use of Tlingit myths and stories as allusions to the plot twists in The Woman Who Married A Bear. Here is a series of private eye novels with authenticity in voice, setting and style. I plan to read the entire series in chronology.