The Woman Who Married a Bear

Cecil Younger #1

by John Straley

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.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Audiobook, Thriller, Suspense

244 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Novelist John Straley has worked as a secretary, horseshoer, wilderness guide, trail crew foreman, millworker, machinist and private investigator. He moved to Sitka, Alaska in 1977 and has no plans of leaving. John's wife, Jan Straley, is a marine biologist well-known for her extensive studies of humpback whales.

Reviews

[John Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually care for hardboiled crime fiction written in the first person, featuring a flawed private detective, a la Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. I fell in with this book, having read the author's excellent quirky storyCold Storage, Alaska. I soon realised this was a very different novel. It wasn't just a different genre, it was written way earlier -- in the early 1990s. The start wasn't encouraging to me either. Clever authors these days know not to indulge in huge info dumps.
But this novel has a lot of good points that drew me into the story.
It' has an excellent mystery storyline, which kept me guessing.
John Straley uses the sights, sounds and smells of Alaska to paint a vivid picture of the place.
He finds the right balance to write about indigenous people with sensibility, humour and pathos.
The ping and pong of many of his dialogue scenes soar -- offering a sneak preview of an author bound for better things.
Now for some negative comments:
I found the ending a bit lame, a bit like cheap and nasty television shows of the 1980s.
It didn't answer all my questions either.
You could say the first 15 per cent of the book and the last 15 per cent lost this book a star. But the middle 70 per cent was well worth the price of admission.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cecil Younger is a bundle of paradoxes: a hard-drinking private eye in Sitka, Alaska. 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.

This is Straley’s first novel, he is a criminal investigator for Alaska's Public Defender Agency. This is also the first in a series.

[Sylvia Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Cecil, my boy, I know you haven't come to me for the truth. I just tell you the story."

Holy cow. Where has this book been all my life? I picked it up expecting a run-of-the-mill mystery novel. I expected a cardboard detective, a cringey plot, and a half-strung mystery with "twists" that only surprise you by rendering the crime and the clues nonsensical.

No y'all. This book is STUNNING. Mystery novels written by real-life private investigators are apparently in another class, especially when the PI is also a poet. I need my detective to leave his Wendell Berry book on a bench in the first chapter (the book that belonged to the woman who used to love him) and come back to pick it up again waterlogged in the last chapter. I need him to do this because WHO IS THIS MAN, how would someone know that you can leave books on a bench untouched for weeks, and why would you ever do this?

I thought if I just filled my head with facts about music and sacred art, all the scary stuff I suspected about myself would be squeezed out, and my head and heart would lighten. Of course it didn't work, and I knew it wasn't working all the time I stood by the side of a road in north Africa with my thumb out, reed flutes and books by Henry miller in my pack. I just ended up with more embarrassing stuff to cart around.

Oh, and besides being poetic, I need my detective to treat memory like mythology. Those books by Miss Christie the queen of crime do scratch an itch, but it's all imagined, it's too clean and it's too separated from the real rules of crime. This book is not, and I love it so much. Detective Younger is elbow-deep in all the nitty-gritty opacity and stupidity of real confusing cases, but not at the cost of the plot. There's still a satisfying mystery and satisfying conclusion. It is absolutely delightful to see the stereotypically noble and orderly life of a PI turned right on its head, American-style.

There is a woman at the phone company business office who does favors for me. Although she doesn't like to see me in the flesh, she is friendly over the phone. Her husband was arrested after he admitted to his psychologist that he had sex with the fifteen-year-old daughter of his business partner. I worked on his case and had helped keep him from going to prison by establishing that he was also having sex with the psychologist. They couldn't pay me enough, but they were grateful and would do things to help, as long as we didn't have to be seen together.

There are so many things about this book that make it feel like a genre of its own. The unique Alaskan setting is 👌🤌 but I was also shocked by the swarm of religious themes and elements and longings. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I can't even put into words what it was like. It wasn't preachy but it was so poignant all throughout the book.

"One of the old owners of the bar had been Russian Orthodox and he had put a Russian icon in there but it caused such a stir that the bishop himself came down to see that it was taken out. The owner then found a picture in a library book and ordered a copy of it for the far end of the bar. It was embossed and then mounted behind unbreakable glass and bolted to the wall underneath the hot dog rotisserie."

"I had grabbed the back of the radio that was chained to the bed of my hotel room in Rock Springs Wyoming, hoping, as the voice said, that "the blessed power of Jesus" would fill my soul. Besides a brief jolt of 110- nothing."

Keep hoping, Cecil. I believe I'll see you soon in the next books.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to read a book from my shelves for a change!

This was originally published in 1992 (this edition is a reprint from Soho,) and 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 the dead man's mother to find out not who did it, but why. There are some elements of Tlingit mythology, but they aren't fleshed out as much as I would have liked, particularly when the whole title is referencing it. While Cecil lives in Sitka like the author, he ventures frequently to various parts of Alaska, which for me and for my reasons to pick up this book (to read more Alaskan lit), I appreciated.

I bought this book at Darvills Bookstore on Orcas Island, right after I'd returned from Alaska.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Woman Who Married a Bear' by John Straley is an unusual mystery. The setting is in Alaska which can be a powerfully evocative location of prehistoric wild(erness) when described by a good writer. Straley nails it.

The main character, Cecil Younger, is a private detective who spends more time being blackout drunk and passed out on Sitka's sidewalks than he does sleeping in his three-story house. I got the impression he wants to drink himself to death more than anything else. If it wasn't for being the caretaker of Todd, a mentally disabled man Younger met in jail, I think Younger would be dead. Todd's attorney had hired Younger to question Todd about his defense in stealing a few items of women's clothing. Todd was missing his mother who had died and he wanted some clothes which reminded him of her. Social Services asked Younger to watch out for him. They've been sharing a house for two years.

The thirty-six-year-old Younger is not a great detective but he knows a lot of people. Everyone knows his and his family's history. His father was a judge who died ten months ago of a stroke. Younger's girlfriend has left him. He does not seem to care much about anything, including Truth, especially about himself. Quote: "and see what she wanted to believe and then give it to her. That's the way it usually works, at least if you want to satisfy your client."

I do not understand Younger at all so far in reading this first book in the Cecil Younger series. He is painted as a person who loves music and art, but for some reason, as of yet unknown, he has come undone. His father's death accelerated the process of Younger's disinterest in everything except drinking. I can see the point of massaging facts into a shape a client wants. However Younger is trying to avoid Reality on any level especially his own. Frankly, I have seen this attitude in real life only this extreme in chronic alcoholics and drug addicts and in religious fundamentalists. So. I suppose the author has nailed it again in creating his main protagonist.

Younger decides to take on a new case for which he has been hired for real though as the book opens. But he is abandoning his usual modus operandi not only because his new client intrigues him. An attack happens which startles him out of his usual uncaring fugue state.

Mrs. Victor lives in the Pioneer Home, a "state-run institution for the aged". She doesn't believe the man Alvin Hawkes, who was convicted of murdering her son Louis Victor, really killed her son. Hawkes was mentally ill, but her son, a vigorous and capable bear hunter and tourist guide, knew how to deal with Hawkes, his employee. Mrs. Victor knew both men. There were other people, family and friends, who were also there on the boat and at the cabin where Louis was killed. Mrs. Victor knew all of them too. She feels some of those people had good reasons to lie about what happened. If Hawkes had truly killed Louis, though, Mrs. Victor wants to know WHY. Why Hawkes had killed, if he had killed, had never been told in Hawkes' trial.

Younger plans to read through all of the material she has collected, talk to some of the people involved, write up a report. However, the next day someone tries to kill Younger!

He is wide awake now and sober for the moment.....and VERY interested in following up on Mrs. Victor's suspicions!

Alaska is the main character of this novel. Straley writes very poetically whenever he describes the land. The oil-and-water mix of old Alaska and new Alaska is also fascinating - business people with fashionable clothes and modern interests live and work in Juneau among Alaskan natives pursuing more subsistence-related activities for themselves and for tourists. As the book was published in 1992 perhaps cultures have become more intertwined since then. One day I would like to visit Alaska.

This novel is a classic modern American mystery generally, but Cecil Younger is extremely damaged emotionally. He can barely tell the difference between being awake and asleep, and he has an odd way of thinking. He really does seem to have the slipping mental gears I've noticed in the minds of real alcoholics.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first in a series about private investigator Cecil Younger, published in 1992. Cecil is the hard-boiled detective type, also a hard drinker ( it seems to go with the territory). But he also has a poetic side. The mystery, about a Native Alaskan hunting guide who was murdered out in the Alaskan bush ( and then his body eaten by bears), is a good one and I read it fast as it was only a little over 200 pages. Why do so many mysteries have to run over 300, 400 pages?
The reason for giving Straley's book 4 stars is mainly due to its setting--Alaska, "the Last Frontier." Straley shows us the dark side of Alaskan towns, their sidestreets and bars, and also the wild and wet bush country, where you know a bear has to show up sooner or later. The title, of course, comes from a Native tale...
John Straley has lived in Alaska and also been an investigator for the state and private clients.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mention myths or folklore, and I'm “hooked.” When I heard this title and learned it was a mystery set in Alaska, I had to read this book. The author notes that the version of the story he uses is a variant of several Yakutat Tlinget stories. Like so much of folklore, without a cultural context, the story could mean almost anything, so it's a clue that's subject to multiple interpretations, and therefore perfect to be the center of a mystery.

The primary setting is Sitka, an island community of small fishermen, bar flies, and the training center for the state's police force – a town of contradictions, it's marginal status underscored by location in the southeast tail of Alaska. The narrator is a detective, of sorts, Cecil Younger. He doesn't drive and he doesn't carry a gun. Most of the time he is anesthetizing himself with alcohol. Of his occupation, he modestly summarizes: “If cops collect the oral history of a crime, I gather folklore. And people who have set themselves up to be the judge rarely accept folklore as the whole truth, unless it's their own story they're telling.” It is his distinctive voice that sets the mood. Other reviewers have noted how it evokes John D. MacDonald (whom I have not read, but plan to). What's notable is that Cecil maintains his own individuality. That individuality is expressed by observations and voice, which serve to balance the moody introspection. Sperm whale exploding from the sea to feast on herring, eagles floating on the updrafts; or the memory of picking berries in a graveyard with Hannah, the woman who has just left him are examples of that tone.

The story begins simply. Louis Victor, a local hunting guide, was murdered. Alvin Hawkes, his mentally unstable employee, was convicted of the crime. Louis' mother has hired Cecil to investigate the murder because Alvin Hawkes' actions do not “make sense” to her. Cecil decides its a matter of asking around and finding a story that will placate the old woman. When his roommate, Todd is shot by a bullet meant for him, Cecil begins to suspect the old woman's intuition might be correct. The deeper he probes into the case, the more confused his investigation becomes.

The pace of this book is extremely leisurely for a mystery. Considerable time is spent telling the back story of Todd, Cecil's complicated relationship to his father (“the Judge”), his relationship with Hannah – both past and present, and even his barroom friends. Another frequent diversion is nature. Weather, mountains, riverbanks, eagles, ravens and salmon are all described in detail. It is a tribute to Straley's writing that these details add to the mood of the book rather than divert from the mystery.

This is a well-written mystery with interesting characters, and a balance of cultural detail and present-day social grit -- all embedded in a well-constructed mystery plot.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took longer to read than I had anticipated, considering it's just a smidge over 200 pages and I'm generally a quick reader. Normally slow reads indicate that either I was not invested in the book, had difficulty understanding all of the book, or it's just a gazillion pages long. This book does not fall into any of those categories. The only excuse I have is that I have been busy.

That being said, this is the perfect kind of book to have around for times when things are busy. It's not a taxing read, it's well-written, it's a nicely paced mystery, and it takes place in Alaska, a place I've visited once and would love to visit again.

The story itself is fine - Cecil Younger is an investigator in Alaska who is asked to look into the murder of a Tlingit Indian woman's son. I'm a fan of decently written mysteries that are also smart as well as entertaining (John Dunning and Michael Connelly are a couple examples), but this is the first one I've read where the investigator lives and works in Alaska. I liked this change of scenery which automatically also gives the read a different pace as well. Life moves much differently in Alaska than it does in LA or New York City, and the cultures and histories are vastly different as well. Straley, who lives in Sitka, did a wonderful job bringing Sitka and its people to life.

I hadn't heard of Straley before I found this book on a clearance shelf at my favorite bookstore, but today while searching shelves in a Baltimore used book shop, I found two other Cecil Younger novels. One of them was a first edition relatively highly priced which made me realize I must really have been missing something by not recognizing his name or his work sooner. I didn't manage to get either of the copies of the books at that store today, but I do intend to finish the Cecil Younger books eventually.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woman Who Married A Bear is the first Cecil Younger mystery by John Straley. It's an excellent introduction to this series. Cecil Younger is a Private Eye working out of Sitka Alaska. He is a bit of a drunk, shares his accommodations with Toby, a man he feels a responsibility towards. Younger is hired by Mrs. Victor, an elderly woman residing in an old folks home in Sitka. 5 years before he son was murdered at Prophet Cove. A man is in prison for the murder but she wants the whole story. She believes there is more to the murder than the police discovered.

Younger starts his investigation on a sour note as an attempt is made to murder him but instead Todd is the victim of the assassination attempt. As Todd fights for his life in hospital, Younger begins a journey that will take him to around Alaska as he tries interview everyone involved in the event and tries to sort out the case and discover a solution that will satisfy Mrs. Victor. There will be threats to his life, someone is trying to get him to stop his investigation.

The story is well - paced and Younger is an interesting character, dealing with issues from his past, with his father, the Judge and also his ex-girlfriend, Hannah. There are so many excellent characters that also people this story, from suspects to people that Younger meets on his journey. We see details from Younger's past that also flesh out his character. All in all, it's a well-crafted story, well-paces and descriptive. It draws you in and you will enjoy the journey with Cecil until a very satisfying ending (5 stars)

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Offbeat, Alaska-based but in the Raymond Chandler mode. Beautiful descriptive style and respect for the Alaska of native peoples. The journey is more important than the mystery.

[Andria Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very good and I can see why it won "best first novel". Fast, easy to devour fiction is my kinda thing. And set in Alaska? Always a plus! 4.5 ⭐.

[Pamela · Rating 1 out of 5]

In a word: boring. In two words: badly written. In three words: waste of time.

The mystery wasn't badly conceived. It was, however, extremely badly written.

The characters were clichés and one dimensional clichés at that.

The pacing was beyond annoying. There would be several pages where nothing at all happened then, when something was happening, as when main character was running from bad guys, the writer would interrupt the action to describe the different wildflowers lining the path.

The main character was a drunk...not a clever drunk, not a troubled drunk, just a flat out drunk who drank for no reason other than to get drunk. That may be realistic, but in a book, it's boring!

The title...well, the title has very little to do with the storyline except in an "oh my, aren't I clever" kind of way.

Unfortunately, Mr. Straley isn't all that clever.

[Megan Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another review where I keep opening the file, sit staring at it for a while, then close it down, because I am just not sure what to write. It's another dreaded "well, it was fine" type of thing. As a mystery, it's...perfectly acceptable. It was an easy read. But I won't be rushing out to get the next in the series.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[E · Rating 2 out of 5]

So disappointing. I liked Straley’s quirky Cold Storage, Alaska, so was hoping to enjoy this intriguingly titled book, latch onto a new-to-me detective series set in Alaska, and learn a little about native Tlingit culture. But I found the alcoholic, on-again/off-again PI protagonist uninteresting and the plot plodding. I put it down half-way through, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 weeks later, still couldn't bring myself to pick it up again. After years of enjoying Dana Stabenow's detective fiction set in Alaska, I was hoping for another gold mine with Straley. But I should have known that there ain't no mo' gold in Alaska. At least not in this book.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried listening to the audio edition of this, none are listed here on GR. I didn't care for the narrator - slow even at 1.5x - nor the story line. I started listening to this a couple of weeks ago & it was turning me off, so I put it aside & tried again yesterday. Still no joy. I don't like the style of writing. Worse, the MC is a loser private detective who doesn't carry a gun or even have a car. He hitchhikes around Alaska solving cases. Nope.

My library has more in this series, so this is mostly a note to myself not to get any more.

[Beth Lechman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this ebook through a goodreads giveaway. The opinion below is my own.

I found this book hard to follow and the characters hard to connect to. Didn't seem to hold my interest. Although I suggest you read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

[John Hanscom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3 1/2. It was better in its descriptions of Alaska than as a mystery.

[Kris McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one’s a shaggy dog story in snow boots. “The Woman Who Married a Bear” has all the ingredients of a good mystery: rugged setting, a private investigator with substance issues, a cultural myth woven into the plot, a murder to solve. Trouble is, none of it ever properly bites. It lumbers, it wobbles, it occasionally growls, but mostly it just stares at you from the treeline and shrugs.

To start with the good: Straley writes Alaska with real bite. The place is a character in its own right. The forests, the rivers, the chill that gets into your bones and won’t leave. It’s all there. You can practically feel the damp creeping up your jeans. And the dialogue crackles, too. When people talk, they talk. The banter works. It sounds like actual humans, not exposition with teeth.

But then you get stuck with Cecil Younger. He’s our detective, and also quite possibly the most boring alcoholic in fiction. He drinks a lot, sure, but without the charm, self-loathing or tragic poetry required to make that kind of character work. One moment he’s supposedly a burnout, the next he’s piecing together a fairly complex murder case with suspicious competence. Pick a lane. The man is a contradiction in flannel. His personality wavers between smug detachment and garden-variety sad bloke, and neither is particularly gripping.

Plot-wise, it’s fine. The mystery is serviceable, which is a polite way of saying it probably wouldn’t survive a second watch on SBS. There are enough twists to keep you turning pages, but none of them land hard. And just when you think it might be building to something substantial, it caps things off with an ending so disappointingly twee, I half expected to hear a laugh track. It feels like the script from a cancelled 1987 pilot for Northern Exposure: Special Victims Unit.

And let’s talk about the supposed heart of the novel. The Tlingit myth that the book is named after should be the spiritual spine of the story, but it ends up more like a decorative footnote. For all its importance to the plot, the Native American element is kept at a safe distance, like a cultural artefact in a locked glass case. It’s referenced, nodded to, but never really explored or felt. The whole thing rings hollow.

Two and a half stars. One for the scenery, one for the dialogue, and half for the fact I actually finished the bloody thing. If you're a die-hard fan of slow, offbeat crime novels with semi-functional detectives and the narrative focus of a drunk man recalling last week, sure, give it a crack. Everyone else can probably leave this one to hibernate.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I asked a really quiet guy for a book recommendation (even though I have something like 600 titles on my TBR list). He's a reader and got very verbose about recommending series and it started with this one. Had never read John Straley, so thought...why not?

Unique title, cultural insights into the clash of Alaskan white and native people, and a generally good story. It's a book for dudes! Brief at 225 pgs, readers meet Cecil Younger, a self-made private investigator who is asked to delve into a murder that is all wrapped up, complete with a confessing murderer in prison. Cecil is youngish, an alcoholic, and a bit of a manipulator. There is wry humor as he plies information from receptionists and fellow drunks. He has a beautiful ex-girlfriend who would come back to him in a heartbeat if he would just get sober. Not happening.

The action is not particularly suspenseful, the romance is not particularly romantic. But Cecil is a colorful character who ultimately solves the puzzle. The nice infusion of bears, whales, and seals all adds to the setting. Not sure I'll follow up on this series, but it was not a bad diversion.

[Liz Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, it starts with a private detective leaving his book of Wendell Berry poetry on a bench outside a nursing home in Sitka Alaska, knowing that no one will steal it. He enters to find an old woman whose son has been killed. The trial is over. The murderer is in prison. She says she knows who killed her son, but she wants the private detective to find out why. I found this to be a fascinating book. I loved the settings and the musings of the drunken son of a judge. There was one chapter where the "woman who used to love him" talks to him about Christianity, but he resists because he likes answers. This book is short and is part of a series. I plan on reading the rest of these books. They makes me smile and think. The story is good too.

[Joseph Bowers · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first picked up this book, I thought it might have somethng to do with a person suffering from mental illness (along the lines of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat). But it turned out to be a murder mystery set in Alaska. The detective travels around Alaska talking to the principals but never seems to be getting anywhere. Then someone tells him the story of the Woman who married a Bear and he goes back to the scene of the crime only to overhear our criminals talking amonst themselves, thereby revealing everything. And now we can see the correlation between the Woman and the murder mystery but there never seems to be much through most of the book that would allow the reader to try to pick up on. I might give his second in this early series to see if it is better.

[Jason Hillenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stellar - in a genre obsessed with successors, let me venture out on a limb and say that Straley and his protagonist Cecil Younger are the clearest heirs to Ross MacDonald that have yet appeared in American crime fiction. Even in the series' first entry, Straley shows exquisitely sensitive attention to the language and his masterful invocation of an unfamiliar locale is nuanced and never belabored. Like the finest literary exponents from this genre, Straley is far more interested in character and relationships than plot, but the story is strong and holds your attention.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing regional mystery series that's been going for 20 years and I never heard of??? Sign me up!

Cecil Younger is an alcoholic investigator in Sitka, Alaska, taking whatever jobs he can to make ends meet. When an aging Tlingit woman asks her to look into her son's death, he takes the job.

Another man is already in prison for the killing but the woman wants to know "why" her son was killed.

Straley's writing is brilliant, painting a vivid picture of Alaska and its people while also telling a damned good story.

The other used books in the series are lready on order.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those mysteries in which the solution is secondary to the evocation of place and character, and in which the quality of the writing calls attention to itself. All of these are very good--Straley does a very convincing take on the over-educated, depressed, alcoholic, apparently low-life private eye with a strong sense of duty and justice. His description of Alaska and its inhabitants is true and memorable. The mystery is pretty good too. I'll be reading more of these.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straley gives us such a sense of place in his Alaska mysteries. The land is brutally indifferent to the lives of men and women, and this echoes the good parts of Jack London. Good writing shows us a world we may not be familiar with, and makes it familiar. Straley does so to good effect here. He involves us in this strange world and makes us care.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the book was just OK. Reason I gave it 3 stars is that I really appreciated the descriptions of Sitka and the surrounding area of Alaska. Mysteries have to be terrific for me to give them a high rating. I get tired of alcoholic detectives, police, or (in this case) private investigators who are alcoholics with personal problems.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straley writes like a poet. My favorite things to read are language and setting. This book was gorgeous in both. The characters, also, were almost like a setting - we got to live inside the half-dream of Cecil Younger and his dirty, dirty life. More of my favorite things to read.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a lot of really lovely writing in this book.

[Hester Clara · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a thriller I found this distinctly lacking in thrills, though I did appreciate the beautiful descriptions of the Alaskan setting.

[CarolineFromConcord · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Straley is a new author for me, and I liked him. This was the first of his mystery series about an Alaskan detective called Cecil Younger, and I expect to read more because it was interesting and literate. Although I wasn't crazy for the long character-revealing digressions about the protagnonist's past drunken debaucheries, they were wildly imaginative and often poetic, so why complain? Straley seems to have a deep knowledge of Alaska, including an appreciation of tribal lore and the majesty of nature. He spent 30 years as a criminal defense investigator and apparently knows how things work.

In this episode, an old Tlingit woman in a nursing home asks Younger to find out what really caused the murder of her son, a bear-hunting guide, as she does not believe the police version. At first, Younger, hard up for some cash, thinks he will just ascertain what she wants to hear and hand it to her. But then someone tries to kill him, severely wounding the young man with mental limitations whom he looks after in his home. Now his native curiosity hardens into determination to find out what's going on.

Between drunken binges related to his prominent father's disappointment in him and also to the departure of the "woman who used to love me," Younger travels by plane and boat to remote parts of Alaska, encountering much beauty and exotic wildlife while trying to figure out what the father of a murdered witness and also the family members of the deceased bear hunter really mean when they tell him things.

I didn't "get" what was attractive about the ex-girlfriend or why mystery-book policemen must always cleave to an obviously too-easy theory of the crime, but I thought the ending was quite satisfying.