Review: "Iron Lake," William Kent Krueger

By Paul Carrier

Working on the assumption that it’s always best to begin a book series at, well, the beginning, I recently turned the clock back a quarter of a century and grabbed a copy of Iron Lake, the first of William Kent Krueger’s 19 (to date) Cork O’Connor mysteries.

It was well worth the trip.

Published in 1998, Iron Lake is set in northern Minnesota, where the protagonist, Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor, makes his home. A former Tamarack County sheriff based in the small town of Aurora, Cork is part Irish and part Anishinaabe, an umbrella term for a group of indigenous peoples that includes the Ojibwe (also known as the Chippewa).

As Iron Lake unfolds, Cork’s marriage to an attorney is on the rocks and he finds himself shacked up with a waitress. When he tries to help a local woman find her son, who disappeared while delivering newspapers, Cork discovers that a retired judge has died, possibly by suicide but more probably at the hands of a killer.

The death toll mounts as Cork launches a dangerous investigation of what proves to be a wide-ranging scandal that ensnares whites and Ojibwe alike. Iron Lake builds to a heart-pounding climax that leaves the reader wondering until the last possible moment who, among the remaining characters, will live and who will die.

Iron Lake is well-plotted and its characters are compelling, but what gives the novel an edge is the sometimes mystical presence of the Ojibwe, who figure prominently in the plot.

Cork may see himself as more white than Ojibwe, but he retains an indigenous sensibility as well, thanks in large part to his childhood relationship with his native grandmother and an Ojibwe hunter named Sam Winter Moon.

Thus, when it is suggested that a malevolent spirit known as a Windigo is abroad in the land, Cork initially dismisses it as a myth. But a part of him “knew different,” Krueger writes. “Sam Winter Moon had cautioned him long ago that it was best to believe in all possibilities, that there were more mysteries in the world than a man could ever hope to understand.”

Iron Lake includes asides about the history, beliefs and practices of the Anishinaabe, who now live in the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada but who appear to have originated in the Northeast or Québec before migrating westward.

In his acknowledgements, Krueger expresses his gratitude to Ojibwe whom he consulted and to “those who’ve chronicled the Anishinaabe culture, past and present,” several of whom he identifies by name.